Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Could you hug me as I go? It’s been a long time since -” 

Vanya hadn’t even let Ben finish, gathering him up in a hug. He smiled and leaned into the hug, marveling at how much different it was than when he was hugging Diego. He could feel so much more, he could tell how tiny Vanya was, how much she was trying not to sob, how much the trembling of her body showed that she was failing at it. 

He whispered to her to let Klaus know that it wasn’t his fault Ben hadn’t walked into the light. Ben had meant to, he had, but he kept staring at it, blue and sparkling and rippling and it had scared him. The voices had been swarming around him, telling him to go in, to hurry, but Ben had just died and he hadn’t even realized it fully and by the time he got out a, “Wait, I’m dead?” he felt himself being pulled, away from the frantic voices and the light and there was his brother, and he knew when Klaus was lying but he didn’t care. 

He should have told him that. Ben knew Klaus felt guilty about it, but Ben hadn’t wanted to admit he was scared and after a while, he told himself he needed to be around for Klaus, to make sure he didn’t spiral. He wished he got the chance to tell him that he had needed Klaus. He wished they hadn’t been fighting - God, not that they weren’t without reason, Klaus was so frustratingly annoying - but he wished all the same that he could tell him, and say sorry, and thanks for the time. 

At least he had this moment, right here with Vanya. He had remembered thinking as he left that he wished he could have seen Vanya once more, that he hadn’t just rushed out the door with a quick “Bye” and nothing else, hadn’t even looked back at her face. At least he got to say goodbye now. 

He couldn’t hold on any longer, he knew it, and he closed his eyes, letting himself get taken away. He thought he could see the light now. 

One moment, he was hugging his sister. 

The next, there was nothing. 

And then, Ben woke up. 

This new Ben was a dick. 

Well, the original Ben was a dick, Klaus thought. Always following him around, going Klaus, that’s not healthy or Klaus, maybe you should call your sponsor? or Klaus, if you die we’re going to have to be ghosts together, you think about that? (The thought of Ben following him around for an eternity going I told you so did get Klaus into rehab for that week, he had to give good ol’ Benerino that one.) But that Ben was always a dick because he had his little mentality of “I don’t want you to waste your life like I wasted mine, blah blah blah young tragic death blah blah blah so much life left to live.” 

This Ben was just a dick for no reason. All pissy because they had “entered their home with no warning and called himself his siblings.” What was weird about that? 

“Well, maybe it’s the hair,” Klaus thought to himself, and the voices in the room stopped, twelve pairs of eyes staring at him. 

Oh. Maybe he didn’t think it to himself. 

“What?” Not-Ben asked curtly. There wasn’t any humor in his voice. Ben could get annoyed but it was never so flat or lacking emotion. Even when he’d roll his eyes there’d be a little smirk, a way Klaus knew that Ben wasn’t fully mad, that he would be happy even when he was trying to be the Good Ghost Babysitter. 

“I was thinking, why is this Ben such a dick -” Klaus said, trying to push himself up from where he was sprawled on the couch. 

“I keep telling you, my name isn’t Ben, it’s -” 

“- and then,” Klaus said, ignoring Emo Haired Ben, “I thought, hey, maybe it’s the weird Penguin-esque hair!” 

“What?” Not-Ben asked, his eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, in a way that was so Ben that it made something in Klaus’s heart - no no no, no thoughts of Ghost Boy Ben, he thought, shaking his head to clear the thought and chugging the rest of his drink. 

“Ha,” Diego said. “He’s saying your hair is stupid.” 

“His hair is not stupid,” the cube said. A cube. Even Five had seemed thrown off with that one, and Klaus was pretty sure Five had worked for a goldfish.  

“Yeah? Well, our Ben had great hair,” Diego shot back. 

“I keep telling you, my name isn’t Ben,” Not-Ben said. 

“Enough,” dear old Dad said sharply, and the room stopped talking. The Umbrella Academy glared at Reginald, the Sparrow Academy straightened their postures and looked down, carefully avoiding his gaze. 

“Well,” Klaus said, rolling off of the couch and steadily getting up. “I’m going to grab another drink while you all make your plans. Anyone else? No? Have fun then.” 

He got down to the end of the hallway when he heard an eruption of voices from the living room, someone running, and a “Wait” from behind him. 

“Hey Viktor,” he said to his brother, and he grabbed his arm. “Need a drink?” 

Viktor looked up at him in mock consideration. “Well, I left the love of my life back in the ’60s, was just in a room with our dead brother, and you just missed this part but I just found out I’m dead. Let’s go with yes.” 

“Ohhhhhh, same,” Klaus said. “Well, minus the dead part.” He paused. “Right?” 

Viktor snorted. “Somehow, you’re a philosophy professor.” 

“Oh no,” Klaus said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “A stuffy old job like that? I might as well be dead.” 

“It’s like we’re twins,” Viktor said, a teasing tilt in his voice. 

“I am definitely older,” Klaus said, giving out a laugh, and he leaned on Viktor as they stumbled down the hallway to find another drink. 

It was as they were hauling the body for disposal in front of a Claire’s that Ben suddenly stopped, staring down at the body they were carrying. Allison thought he needed a moment - Ben could always do the heavy work, but she knew he hated it, almost as much as killing people on their secret missions. He was probably going to throw up. That was fine, anything beat that one time she did body disposal with Klaus and he had cried as the body burned, because apparently Larry from Long Island had a fear of fire and was screaming at them from beyond the grave. 

She could give Ben a few minutes, she thought, looking up at the Claire’s sign. 

Instead of dry heaving, though, a question came. “Allison, do you want to have kids?” 

Allison looked away from the sign and turned to her brother, eyes crinkling in confusion. “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Never really thought about it.” 

“Oh,” Ben said softly. He looked down at the body, and asked even softer, “Do you think I’d be a good dad?” 

“Why do you ask?” Allison asked. 

“I don’t know,” Ben shrugged. 

“No, you asked me for a reason,” Allison said, but Ben just kept looking down, mumbling something about it being stupid, and Allison narrowed her eyes. “Fine, if you won’t tell me. I heard a-” 

“Okay, okay,” Ben said, a bit of annoyance in his voice, and Allison felt an odd twinge of guilt before reminding herself that it was all right. Siblings and teammates shouldn’t have to keep secrets, and it was important to know, even if she needed to rumor him. Besides, Ben was going to tell her what was wrong anyway.

“I just..” Ben sighed, looking down at the body that he and Allison had been stuck getting rid of. “When the tentacles came out, he just started screaming for his parents. He didn’t stop and I just thought, if I’m so - if I’m The Horror, if I’m so scary, what if - if someone’s too scared to be with me, and have kids with me? Or I have kids and I just scare them with my powers?” 

There was silence, and Ben sighed. “Yeah. Like I said, stupid -” 

“No, no,” Allison said, reaching out to hold Ben’s hand. “Ben, you’re not The Horror. That’s not you. You’re Ben Hargreeves, and you’d be a great dad.” 

“You think?” Ben asked, a twinge of hopefulness creeping into his voice. 

Allison stopped and looked at her brother. She forgot the dead body between them, the wet, sticky blood spattered across Ben’s entire body, the piece of intestine clinging to his hair. All she could see were his eyes, shining and full of cautious hope. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, you’d be a wonderful dad.” 

Ben smiled, and it was as if the entire world had lit up with him. 

Ben’s mouth was set in a firm, stern line as he watched Klaus stumble away, and Allison wondered, briefly, if she should follow him until their father slapped down manila folders in front of them and announced that he had files on all of their 2019 lives. 

“You kept tabs on us?” Diego asked, his voice filled with disbelief. 

“Of course I did,” the reply came. “I had to make sure you wouldn’t interfere with my Sparrow Academy!” 

Allison stared at the folder with her photo on it and with trembling hands picked it up, her eyes widening as she read through, catching her father’s voice in snippets as the room spun around her. 

“Number One, you are a mechanic in this very town, Number Two -  in Mexico as an -  Number Three is -  Four is a professor - Number Five and Number Seven, you have both been deceased for -” 

There was disbelief from Viktor, his siblings talking over each other with sympathy and accusations at Reginald, who looked at his watch and said he was late for something and had to leave immediately. Allison was vaguely aware of him saying something to Ben, but she couldn’t focus on what it was, she could only look at the paper in front of her. 

Number Three. Reality manipulation. No family to speak of. 

She couldn’t read further. It didn't matter, nothing after that mattered. Claire wasn’t there, her sweet baby girl who she couldn’t hold or hug or apologize to wasn’t there. 

The room continued spinning and the voices became more muffled and distant, until she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. 

“Allison?” came Luther’s voice, full of concern. When she looked around, the room had seemingly emptied but for Luther and Ben, who was staring at them with mild disinterest from his seat on the couch. 

“Claire doesn’t exist,” Allison choked out, and Luther’s eyes widened. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, crouching down next to her. “I don’t know what to say.” 

Sitting there, Luther’s eyes full of concern, this Ben who wasn’t their Ben looking and encroaching on this moment, her baby, her baby being gone from her again - no, no, Allison couldn’t do this. 

“I’m going to one of the rooms,” she said, standing abruptly. “Don’t follow me,” she told Luther, who had stood when she had. A flash of hurt flickered on Luther’s face before it was gone and he nodded, and said, “Tell me if you need me.”

Allison walked out of the hallway. Reality manipulation, reality manipulation, reality manipulation. She hadn’t ever actually thought of her powers like that, as manipulating reality. She just thought she could get people to do what she wanted. But reality manipulation, that could bring back Claire. Couldn’t it? 

“Hey,” came a voice behind her, and Allison turned, looking at Ben. He still looked annoyed, as if her outburst had messed up his day. 

“What do you want?” she asked, feeling cross and guilty. 

“Dad wants you all to find your doppelgangers,” Ben said. “See if there’s any information you can figure out, if it’ll help you. I’m coming with you all.” 

Allison wanted nothing less than finding a version of her that didn’t have Claire. 

“No, I’ll pass,” she said, and Ben sighed and shrugged. 

“Whatever,” he said. “I’ll ask space boy and the kid.” 

He moved to step past her, but Allison blocked his path, stepping in front of him, feeling rage threatening to spill out. 

This was Ben, but it wasn’t. Ben never got to this age, he looked like it when she had seen him as a ghost, briefly - she didn’t know how ghosts really worked but she guessed he aged with Klaus. But it didn’t change that he didn’t get to actually grow up to look like this, to be their age, and that this Ben, with none of the original sweetness or kindness, did. 

It wasn’t fair that Claire wasn’t here. It wasn’t fair that Ben was here but wasn’t. 

She thought of the file again. Reality manipulation. 

“I heard a rumor, ” she said, locking eyes with Ben. “That our Ben was here.” 

Ben blinked once, then twice, and then gave a small laugh. Allison smiled back, hopeful for a moment, until the all-too-short smile left his face.

“I don’t understand you people,” he said. “And I keep telling you, my name’s not Ben.” And with that, he brushed past her and walked down the hall, not sparing Allison a second glance. 

“It’s out of control, let me handle this Luther!” Diego screamed at him, narrowly ducking the chair that was thrown at his head. Luther looked around - Allison was trying to get civilians to safety, Klaus was backing up, his eyes wide, Ben was staring at the monster, muttering something to himself. 

Dad would be so disappointed in them. They were the Umbrella Academy. They needed to fight as a team. 

Then Diego broke formation, started running at the - the thing that had erupted. Luther ran towards Diego, pushing him. 

“No, I’m Number One, you have to listen to me-” 

“Shut up, Lu-Luther,” Diego yelled. “Just let me do it, y-your plan is stupid.” 

Luther pushed Diego, angry, and Diego gave a yell, pushing him back. “You’re wasting time,” Luther yelled, grabbing Diego by the collar. “If you just listen to my plan-”

He was interrupted by Klaus, yelling Ben’s name. Ben was running towards the monster, screaming something about how it was so similar to his tentacles, that he thought he knew how he could fix this. 

“I can do this!” Ben yelled, running towards the monster, and then stopping, looking back at his siblings, an uncertain look on his face. 

“I love you guys,” he yelled, and then turned back. 

Luther didn’t know what happened next, there were too many debris and tentacles and then he blinked and there was so much blood, everywhere he looked. 

“Holy shit, he did it!” Diego said, wrenching his shirt away from Luther’s grasp. “Ben, you did it!” he yelled, and frowned, his eyes scanning the area. Luther looked back at Diego, whose eyes were starting to cloud with tears and worry. “B-b-ben?” he yelled again before running off to where the monster had once stood, slipping on the blood a few times as he ran. 

Luther would have laughed if he hadn’t had a sinking feeling in his stomach. 

Allison and Klaus were running now, carefully, yelling Ben’s name, and Luther stared at their figures, not wanting to follow. He closed his eyes, silently begging that he’d hear a cry of relief. 

It was Allison’s scream that led him to finally run towards the rest of his siblings, and for a brief moment he felt relief when he didn’t see a body, until he saw Klaus and Allison on the floor, sobbing, alongside Diego, weeping as he clutched something, tattered and bloody, to his chest.

Ben’s favorite leather jacket and hoodie, almost unrecognizable by the giant hole in the center. 

“Won’t I get paradox psychosis?” Luther asked Five as they walked down the sidewalk where Luther’s - well, Tom’s, here - home was. He had been surprised when Dad had given them the files, and even more surprised when Five had suggested that they check them out. 

“I don’t know,” Five said crossly. 

“And hey, how come we aren’t in those bodies anyway?” Luther asked. “Shouldn’t we not even remember if the future got changed? Like Ben,” he said, pointing to their brother beside them. If he had been surprised that Five had suggested they find his doppelganger, he was even more surprised that Ben had volunteered to come with them (and hurt, quite frankly, that Ben refused to let Luther in his car because “it definitely will break, we’re all walking or we don’t go”). 

“I’m not Ben,” came the reply, alongside another, “I don’t know, Luther.” 

“Right,” Luther said, before slowing down his stroll. “And come to think of it, older you went back into the portal to 2019 to meet us. We saw him do that, but he’s not here. So where’d he go? And how come you’re still so...tiny if you fixed the calculation?” 

Five whipped around, a vein above his eye throbbing, and Luther briefly wondered if his fifty-eight slash thirteen-year-old brother could have a stroke in this body. 

“I don’t know, you big oaf,” Five snapped, his voice getting louder with each word. “That’s why we’re here, to see if Dad is lying to us, or if we somehow dropped ourselves into another universe, or if time is going to slowly catch up to us. That. Is. Why. We're. Here!”  

Luther paused, and shrugged. “Okay,” he said, walking to catch up with Ben, who had left the two behind. He could hear Five scoff in a “that’s it? ” and he grinned as he caught up with Ben. 

“I’m still a bit confused, but it’s fun to annoy him,” he said to Ben. “Remember how much you and Klaus used to mess with him?”

“You all keep doing that,” Ben said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “Calling me ‘Ben’, and ‘brother’. I’m neither of those things.” 

Luther frowned. “But you are. You have to feel something. You came with us, you’re hanging out with us, you have to know it’s true.”

“No, I’m not,” Ben said. “I came to keep an eye on you, because if you’re as big of failures as Dad says you are, you definitely need a babysitter. Besides, even if what you’re saying is true - and I only believe you because Dad backed up your story - I’m not your brother anyway, you’re just thinking about a version of me that doesn’t exist.” He paused, thinking, and added. “Technically, none of you are siblings anymore.” 

“No,” Luther said, annoyance creeping up on him as well. “It doesn’t matter, this is just a...weird time thing that Five will figure out in a week. We’re still brothers, you’re still Ben. You can’t just say we’re not siblings just because you don’t feel like it-oh, huh,” he said, pausing in his place, and Ben turned. 

“What?” he sighed. 

“I just figured out why me and Allison were so weird,” Luther said. “Huh.” 

“Congratulations, you finally figured out at age thirty why sleeping with your sister is weird,” Five muttered from behind him. 

“We never even kissed!” Luther protested, but his brothers were already moving on without him. They walked the rest of the way in silence until they got to Luther’s - Tom’s - house. They were across the street, trying not to get too close to him - best not to freak him out completely. 

“He should be getting out of his house soon,” Five said, looking at his watch, and right on time, the door opened. 

“Oh,” Luther said, looking at the man. He had forgotten until now that he would look...normal. He knew logically that if he wasn’t adopted by Dad that he wouldn’t have the gorilla body he had now, but he had forgotten what his body had looked like. He was tall and lean, muscular but nothing too out of place. 

“Bye babe!” yelled his doppelganger, and a woman’s voice came from inside the house yelling goodbye back. 

He had a girlfriend, of five years according to his file, and even though he couldn’t see her, Luther knew from the look on his own face that he was absolutely head over heels over her. There was another look on his doppelganger’s - Tom’s - face that seemed different, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. 

Five was staring at Luther intently, and Ben spared him a sidelong glance, his expression unreadable. 

“Any psychosis symptoms?” Five asked, looking over Luther. “You don’t seem itchy, or agitated, but you should be able to feel some effects from here.” 

“No,” Luther said, shaking his head. “I just feel...sad.” 

It had occurred to him, finally, what the other Luther looked like. Someone free from burdens and the weight of the world. 

Tom could look at his body in the mirror every day without shame.  Tom could pass by Ben or Viktor on the street and not feel an ounce of guilt for failing them. Tom could probably even meet Reginald Hargreeves and not feel like a scared kid in his presence. 

Tom was something Luther hadn’t been in a long time, if ever at all. 

Tom was happy. 

“BEN? VANYA?” Five yelled out. 

No response, as usual. He shouldn’t have expected anything different, of course, but he still felt a pang in his chest when he didn’t hear a reply. 

His siblings were fairly easy to identify, and Five had realized quickly that Ben and Vanya were nowhere in sight. 

He knew just because they were nowhere to be found didn’t mean that they were alive. He knew that. They could be dead, their bodies most likely incinerated by whatever tragedy had caused this apocalypse in the first place. 

The apocalypse that he could stop, if he could just find a way back home to his family. 

He had spent a week in this hellhole, and couldn’t imagine being here much longer. “I just have to get stronger,” he said to himself. “Just wait it out, you can jump back again.” It would work. It would have to. 

And in the meantime, he’d have to find Ben and Vanya, or at least their bodies. 

He missed them, all of them, even Luther and Allison, who were so wrapped up in their own little world that it felt like they forgot the others existed. Diego had been teaching Five darts before Five had run off. Ben had said they should give Vanya some fighting lessons that Dad had inexplicably left her out of. Five had been looking forward to both of those things.  

And now they were all dead. 

He heard his father’s voice in his head, playing on repeat. I told you so, Number Five, if you hadn’t left you could have prevented this, they failed because you are not there. 

No. He had to find Ben. He had to find Vanya. 

He searched the house, to no avail. He found Pogo’s body, impaled on a horn, and their mother, or the pieces of her that were left. But no Ben and Vanya. 

He’d let himself dream, sometimes, that he’d find them in this wasteland. He couldn’t figure out their faces; they would look vague and still child-like even though he knew they were adults by this point, but he did know Vanya would cry of happiness, and Ben would sweep him up into a hug despite Five’s protests. 

It was a few weeks later that he found the book. The name Hargreeves popped out to him in the library, and he sat there for a while staring at Vanya’s face. She had lost her bangs, which was to be expected, but her eyes were the same. Big and round and full of sadness. 

The book was well-written. Five couldn’t imagine everyone in the family being pleased with it but he was grateful, at least, that he had information on his family, and what became of them. 

It was at chapter seventeen that Five found out one part of his dreams could never come true. He read through, again and again, each time struggling to understand. The siblings, save for Vanya, all going out to get ice cream as a reward for a mission. A monster, similar to Ben’s tentacles, appearing in the square. Diego and Luther arguing, unfocused on the mission, Ben stepping up, and the splatter of blood and guts that was left behind. 

“Fucking Luther,” he said, resisting the urge to throw the book down. “Fucking Diego.” 

He warped outside, looking at the backyard - to see what, he didn’t know. Vanya had mentioned a statue was put outside to commemorate Ben, one that they had hated because it didn’t look like Ben, but Five needed to see it suddenly. It didn’t matter, anyway, the entire yard was leveled and no statue could be seen. 

He looked down at the book, wondering at how a chapter could crush half his fantasy like that. It was a stupid fantasy, Five couldn’t even think of a time he had Ben had hugged. Ben had tried, once, on their birthday, but Five had warped away from his grasp. And now Ben would never hug him because Ben was dead, with nothing to show for it but a destroyed statue and an almost-empty casket. 

Five felt the tears spring to his eyes and he wiped them away angrily. 

The fantasy wasn’t completely crushed, he reminded himself, looking down at the author photo. Vanya was still out there, somewhere, and he would find her even if he had to check every body he came across for her. He would find her, dead or alive. He would figure out how to save his family, no matter the cost. 

“VANYA!” he yelled into the vast empty apocalypse. 

Just as before, there was no response.  

Five watched Luther walking, shoulders slumped and his head bowed. Five had offered to just bring them all back home using their powers, but Luther had refused, saying he needed a second to “clear his head”. 

“Clearing his head” was clearly code for “sniffling and cursing out Reginald under his breath.” 

Five knew why he was upset. He wasn’t a fool. Luther had seen himself and realized that without their father, he would have been well-adjusted and happy, and without a gorilla body to boot. 

Luther was always the sensitive one in the group, up there with Diego, as much as both of them liked to pretend otherwise. This was probably going to take him a while. Fine. He’d let Luther sulk for a few more minutes. 

He looked over at the Pretender, and asked. “How’d you get your scar?” 

The Pretender looked down at him, smirking a little. “You’re a blunt little kid, aren’t you?” 

“If by little kid you mean a fifty-eight-year-old assassin, then yeah, I guess I am a blunt little kid,” Five frowned. “You didn’t answer my question.”

The Pretender rolled his eyes. “Some mission from a while back. A creature from the other dimension opened up, so my brothers and sisters and I fought it off. Got a nasty scar to show for it, but a pretty simple job otherwise.” 

“Other dimension?” Five asked, and the Pretender looked at him, mild confusion passing his face. 

“Yeah, the one where my tentacles come from?” he said, and then he laughed. “You Umbrella Academy kids really don’t know anything, do you?” 

Five leveled a glare at the Pretender. “You’re lucky you share a face with my brother,” he said. “Or else you’d regret that comment.” 

“Hm, lucky me,” the Pretender said sarcastically, and pulled out his phone. Five blinked. Was he... ending the conversation? Five ended conversations. Five ended lives. And this punk had the nerve to be texting? 

The Umbrella Academy knew some stuff, Five thought to himself bitterly, staring at Luther. If they only knew how to get over themselves first, they’d be unstoppable against this Sparrow Academy and whatever Dad was plotting. 

“Stop sulking, Luther,” he yelled to the man, and Luther paused, waiting for Five and The Pretender Ben to catch up with him. 

“You don’t understand, Five,” Luther sighed, launching into a self-pity monologue that Five was certain he hadn’t asked for. “I just saw myself and I was normal. No monster body, no hang-ups, no nothing. I have a girlfriend,” he emphasized, as if that was the most important part of his statement. “But it’s not me! I don’t have any of that, I just have a weird….sister complex, and a dad complex, and a body complex.” 

“Oh my god,” the Pretender mumbled. 

“It could be worse,” Five said and Luther gave him a sidelong glance. He even had the nerve to look exasperated, as if Five had said something funny and Luther was humoring him. 

“Please, Five, explain how it could be worse than being stuck in this body,” Luther scoffed. 

Five saw bricks and metal pinning Luther down, ash and blood all around him, his hands grasping onto a glass eye as if everything depended on it. He felt the weight of Luther’s body as he dragged him into a makeshift grave, Luther’s face looking as if for once, he was calm and collected, as if not being Number One had freed him somehow, even in death. Five smelled the stench of death that he had grown used to with age, but could not handle back then, when he was but a child. 

“You could be dead,” he said softly, and Luther’s face softened. “You have a chance to be happy, even if you’ve been dealt a shit hand. Can’t do that if you’re dead.” 

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to pat Five on the back. “I didn’t even think about your doppelganger being dead.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Five snapped, and Luther raised his eyes, clearly getting the message that whatever bonding moment this had been was now over. 

Five looked over at his brother out of the corner of his eye, feeling a bit of relief when he saw that Luther had stopped sulking. He looked lighter, almost, with a bit of a sparkle in his eye. He was so young, so easily full of hope with a simple pep talk. Five should have envied him for it, but as he looked at his brother’s face, Five felt...relieved. Luther shouldn’t have to have the joy in his life taken away from him. If Five had his way, Luther never would, none of his remaining siblings would. It occurred to him then that maybe even he could get some of that joy back. 

Hm. 

Maybe he was still naive and young enough for a pep talk to give him hope as well. 

"No, no, no, no, no, he’s not dead,” Viktor cried, and Five reached over, putting his hand over his. 

“I’m sorry Viktor,” he said. “Ben is gone.” 

“No, this isn’t right,” she said, shaking her head.

“You saw the blood, Viktor,” Luther said, struggling to fit into the doorway with his gorilla-frame. “You saw it on the news. No one could have survived that. 

“Y-yeah,” sixteen-year-old Diego said. “Y-you weren’t even th-th-there.” 

“But he was,” Klaus said, sauntering into the room, dog tags swinging wildly around his neck. The twelve-year-old crashed into the couch and flopped down, grinning at Viktor. “He saw Ben just poof away, didn’t she? Good old Benny boy, saving our disaster of a sibling!” Somewhere, disembodied, he could hear Allison laugh. 

“No, no,” he said, moving backwards, until he bumped into something solid. He turned around and let out a gasp of relief. 

“Ben,” he said, and her brother smiled at her, looking older and peaceful. 

“You were right, Viktor,” he said. “Come on, give your brother a hug.” 

Viktor smiled tearfully and moved to hug him when she heard a voice. 

“Viktor.” 

He turned. He was in his kitchen, looking at Sissy, Harlan playing at the table. Sissy smiled at her, but it was a smile filled with longing and sadness. 

“This isn’t right,” she said. “You know it isn’t right.” 

Viktor blinked, and turned back to Ben. “Ben, I don’t-” he stopped.

Ben was wrong, somehow. 

His hair was spiked down, and he was in a uniform but it was almost all red. The smile was replaced with indifference, and instead of outstretched arms his tentacles were out and poised towards him. He smiled then, a slow, sinister smile, and before Viktor could get out a “Ben?” the tentacles shot out towards his heart. 

Viktor awoke with a gasp. 

He reached her arm out next to her, blinking in confusion as his hand touched the pillow, and then sighed as he remembered where he was. 

Right. 

This messed-up timeline - or alternate universe, Five said. Viktor wasn’t too sure; he vaguely remembered him saying something about a multiverse, but he had spent the day getting drunk with Klaus and by the time Five was talking he was long gone. 

Speaking of, his head was killing him. “How does Klaus do this all the time?” he muttered to herself, getting out of bed and shuffling downstairs for a glass of water. And maybe three Ibuprofens. Or for Allison to rumor his headache away. 

Wait, could Allison do that? Viktor paused and looked at the stairs. It wasn’t impossible, Allison had been able to wipe Viktor's memory and keep that block there for close to two decades. A headache was simple enough. Viktor stared a little longer before shaking his head and walking down the hallway. If he woke up Allison in the middle of the night, he was pretty sure his sister wasn’t going to be all too pleased. Plus, Allison was trying not to use her powers unless things were life and death, and Viktor was pretty sure this wasn’t, even if his head was threatening to split apart. 

Besides, he was already closer to the kitchen. The light was on, so he slowed down his pace, prepared to turn around and walk away if it was one of the...odder Sparrow Academy members. Christopher the Cube was probably the most normal of the members and he was, well, a cube. He paused at the door when she realized who was there, and she was still contemplating if she should turn around and try to sleep off the rest of her headache when the voice spoke. 

“Just come in,” he said. “Get whatever you want.” There was an unspoken freeloader tacked on at the end there, but Viktor accepted the invitation anyway, grabbing a cup (at least the dishes were the same, there wasn’t any question about Dad’s taste in home decor changing with this timeline). She sat down next to the man who wasn’t her brother, sipping her water quietly. 

The silence was overwhelming and with her headache was going strong, she could only hear the thump, thump, thumping of her head. 

Thump, thump, thump, th-

Viktor slammed down her cup, with a force that made the man next to her look over, eyebrows raised. 

“Why are you doing this?” he asked him, her eyes focused on her cup. He couldn’t look at him, not yet. He could hear his heart too, if he concentrated hard enough, a slow, steady beat. 

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum .

“I was thirsty, just like you,” he said, motioning to his cup. 

“No,” Viktor said, more forcefully. “I mean, why are you doing this? Why is Dad letting us stay here, why is he trying to help us find our other selves, why does he even care?” 

He forced herself to look up at him. “I know Dad. Dad was so scared of my abilities that he drugged me up for years and made me forget. He never had a loving thought towards any of us, not once. He adopted other children just so he wouldn’t adopt us all over again. So why would he be trying to help us now?” 

The man who wasn’t his brother shrugged.

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum

“I don’t pretend to know why Dad does the things he does,” he said. 

“And yet, you’re still here,” Viktor insisted, more forcefully this time. “You’re all still here. One of you is a cube, which I can only imagine has some weird tragic backstory to it, but still, even he’s here. We all left after y- Ben died, but it doesn’t look like any of you have even thought about leaving.” She shook her head and sighed as a thought occurred to her. “Was he nicer to you all?” 

He would. Of course he would. Not only did he decide to be a better parent, he decided none of them were worth being a better parent to. 

There was silence for a while, for so long that Viktor wondered if he had even heard her, before he spoke. 

“When we were seven, we had a nanny,” he said, looking down at his cup, his eyes worlds away. “Grace.” 

“Mom,” Viktor said softly. “She was with us too. Dad built her. I kept killing the nannies.” 

He gave a small chuckle. “We didn’t. Dad kept us under a tight rule. I don’t even know why he built her, he just came home one day and said she was here now and that she’d help keep us in line. We loved her. She gave us names, real ones; she’d be waiting for us with a hug and a smile after every mission. She was our mother.” 

Viktor looked at him, softening. He could hear his heart, slowly speeding up as he had been talking. 

Ba dum, ba-badum, badum, badum

“I thought Mom wasn’t in this universe,” she said quietly, a growing sense of dread in her chest. “What happened to her?” 

His fingers tightened around his cup, the knuckles of his fingers turning white. “I don’t know why it happened, but there was - we were home and Mom put the television on, and there was this...I don’t know, some woman on the screen. I never caught her name but she was an old woman, Southern accent, and it’s her fault. She started saying The Sparrow Academy was wrong, that Dad was evil, that this academy was a farce. That’s what she called it, a farce. Dad started saying something about Mom leaving him, and I remember she said, ‘ What do you mean, silly? I’m right here’ and then -” he broke off, and Viktor could hear his heart getting faster. 

Badumbadumbadumbadumbadum

“What?” he asked softly, reaching out to touch his arm. 

It was like a switch went off. His hands, which had been tightly grabbing onto the cup, loosened suddenly, and he stood up, the faraway look leaving his eyes and his heart rate returning back to normal. With a tone as casual as if he was saying the laundry was done, he said, “And the next thing I knew, her limbs were scattered across the living room and her smiling head was in my lap.” 

He leaned in, his voice laced with bitterness and anger. “You think we had it better than you? He was worse, he made sure we knew we couldn’t leave.” With that, he straightened up and started walking away. 

“You can still leave,” Viktor said, turning to look at him.

He didn’t turn around, but Viktor could see his shoulders slump ever-so-slightly. 

“And do what?” he asked. “Be a normal person, teach at a university like Klaus’s doppelganger? Be a mechanic like Luther’s? There’s nothing I can do out there. I’m a weapon, that’s all I can ever be.” 

“I told our Ben something like that pretty recently,” Viktor said softly. “That I was a monster. He told me that what Dad did was messed up and that I could be angry about it, but that it didn’t make me a monster. He just said that I was his sibling.” 

“Your Ben sounds pretty nice,” he said. “Too bad it couldn’t keep him alive.” 

“He was nice,” Viktor said, already feeling tears prick at the back of his eyes but refusing to take the bait. Years of being estranged from his siblings had taught him when his siblings were trying to get a rise out of him and this was no different, even if it was an alternate dimension version of his brother. “He was the kindest of all of us. I know you’re not him, I know you’re not, but our Ben wasn’t a weapon. He loved pranking Luther and Allison, and singing Backstreet Boys, and he wanted to be a guidance counselor because he wanted to help people. If there’s even a little bit of him in you, then you’re not just a weapon. Don’t let Dad turn you into one.” 

He thought he saw an almost imperceptible nod from the man who wasn’t his brother, and then he walked away. 

“Diego, you’re sure no one’s coming?” Ben asked. 

“Y--yeah, Ben, you’re g-g-ood,” Diego whispered back. Ben adjusted the tape, swapping out the Ruxpin tape with the one he and Diego had recorded, giggling, an hour before. 

“Okay, aaaaand, I’m done,” Ben said, adjusting the Teddy Ruxpin back onto Allison’s bed. He gave it a close once-over and gave a mock shudder. “And they call me The Horror,” he said, and Diego snorted. 

“Quick, someone’s c-coming,” Diego hissed, and Ben sprinted from the bed, dragging Diego with him as he ran out the door. The two bumped into Luther and Allison, who looked at them with suspicion. 

“What are you two doing?” Luther asked. 

“What are you two doing?” Diego asked, and Luther stammered out a “none of your business, Number Two.” 

"Well, this was great,” Ben said with an awkward laugh, and pulled Diego with him away from Luther and Allison. Diego heard a, “They’re so weird,” from Allison, and then hers and Luther’s voices faded away. 

“Wanna listen to the Backstreet Boys album?” Ben asked, and Diego groaned. 

“I love them t-t-too, but can we listen to someone else? Like M-Michael Jackson?” 

“Yeah!” Ben said, smiling, and Diego sighed in relief. Ben had been playing their album on repeat recently, and as much as he loved his brother, Diego couldn’t think he could handle hearing “Roll With It” for the fiftieth time in a row. 

“C-c-cool,” he said, grinning back at his brother. 

They were on their third Michael Jackson song when they heard Allison shriek, and then Luther’s voice. “ Number Two, Number Six, you’re both dead! ” 

Ben and Diego looked at each other, and Ben snorted, doubling over in laughter, and soon enough Diego was joining him. 

“We love you too, Luther!” Ben half-yelled half-giggled, wheezing as he tried to stop laughing. 

“We should probably fix that,” Ben said, and Diego nodded. 

“D-definitely,” Diego said, before grinning and pulling out Luther’s prized Furby that he had swiped from his room. “And we sh-should totally not do anything t-to this before giving it back to Luther e-either.” 

Ben gave a delighted gasp. “Ohhh this is great, we should get Five in here for that.” He saw Diego’s hesitant look and added, “No, seriously. Five has a lot of Luther insults saved up, he’ll be great for this, I promise.”

“Ex-excellent,” Diego said. 

Allison’s voice carried down the hallway again, yelling to their mom. “They reprogrammed it, listen!” and the song carried out throughout the hallway, “ LUTHER SNIFFS DAD’S UNDERWEAR,” followed by an embarrassed, “Allison!” 

Diego and Ben looked at each other and broke out laughing again, doubling over on Ben’s bed in giggles. 

Diego knew that their piece of shit of a father was going to betray them. 

He had mentioned it to his siblings earlier, all of them clustered on Viktor's bed. “No way is this asshole helping us out of the goodness of his heart, he’s-”

“-planning something? Yeah, I think we all made that conclusion, Diego,” Five had said, but there hadn’t been any bite to his words, just careful consideration. “The question is, what?" 

They had theorized for ages - Viktor suggesting that maybe it was a weird test to pit the Academies against each other, Klaus with a “maybe - and hear me out - he’s a piece of shit who wants us dead”, Luther saying “maybe he really did see the error of his ways?” which was received with a resounding “Nahhhh ” from everyone else. 

They hadn’t really come to a conclusion, just argued while Allison painted Klaus’s nails and Five kept snapping his fingers in front of them to pay attention. When Klaus just said they should just wait to see how Reginald would inevitably betray them, Five had thrown up his hands and go, “Fine! Let’s just hold off on our father killing us, perfect plan, Klaus!” 

“Thanks, you little shit,” Klaus said, before laying his head on Viktor's lap and promptly falling asleep. 

“Fucking unbelievable,” Five had muttered, but then Christopher the Cube appeared at the door announcing that they had important news on fixing the Umbrella Academy’s timeline, and they needed to go to where it had broken the first time. Reginald had led them to the theater Viktor had worked at, and when he said, “It’s a shame, I thought paradox psychosis would set in and yet it didn’t. How unfortunate,” Diego sighed, knowing where this was going. 

“Let me guess, you don’t want us around in any timeline because you’re so afraid that we’ll mess shit up, huh?” Diego asked his father. 

“Very astute,” Reginald had said. “How fitting that you would show some potential intelligence so close to your death.” 

The comment stung, but Diego bit his tongue. No need for him to mess up right now and get his siblings killed. 

“Sparrow Academy, I trust you all will succeed in your mission,” Reginald had said, and with that he had turned and walked away, leaving The Umbrella Academy surrounded by The Sparrow Academy. 

In hindsight, they really should have made a plan. 

But they had been, surprisingly, resilient, and Diego felt a rush of pride as he saw his siblings hold their own. Klaus had managed to summon two ghosts to pin down one of them, Luther had knocked one unconscious, Viktor was holding back, thankfully, but he and Five were tag-teaming two of the Sparrow Academy members. Diego and Allison had fought off the cube, Allison tossing the cube to Diego, who curved it to slam into the stage. 

He wasn’t completely positive, but he was pretty sure he had knocked it unconscious. 

That only left one, and he was rising above them, tentacles out and ready to attack. 

“Stop!” Diego yelled, and his brother looked at him. “We’re your family,” Diego pleaded. “Look at us, we’re your family.” 

“All of us are,” Viktor said. “All the 43, we’re all connected, somehow.” He locked eyes with their brother, a look of something Diego didn’t fully understand passing between the two. “We can’t let Dad dictate our lives like this.” 

His brother’s jaw clenched. “You don’t know him here.” 

“He’s a shitty old man with shitty parenting skills,” Five yelled. He wondered if Five was stalling, waiting to regain his juice if he was joining in on the pep talk. “It doesn’t matter what universe he’s in. You can leave, you can all leave.” 

His brother shook his head and clenched his fists. “And what, be a happy family with you all? All what, thirteen of us? While you all look at me and see the brother you can never have?” 

“You don’t have to be him,” Diego said. “We know you’re not him, even if it’s hard. You’re still our brother. I don’t want to fight you.” 

His brother’s eyes turned away from Five. 

“You all really think you love me,” his brother said. For a moment, Diego thought he saw them soften, until a flash of fear flickered over his brother’s face. 

“It’s too bad for you that I don’t have those same restrictions,” Ben said. Diego saw the tentacles coming towards him, and he grabbed his dagger, hoping that it would help him even a little during the fight. 

A flash of blue opened up in Diego’s periphery and the next thing he knew, he was on the opposite side of the theater. He turned to thank Five, and smiled when he saw his savior. 

“Lila?” he asked, and she grinned, leaning in to give him a quick kiss. 

“I have been looking all over for you,” she said. 

Their Ben was still looking at them, and his tentacles went back up, aiming straight for Diego and Lila. Diego heard a “No!”, a voice that he probably wouldn’t have recognized if he hadn’t heard it in a biting tone this entire week, and when he looked up and saw another man jump, tentacles bursting out of his body and rising him up to the same level as Sparrow Ben, he smiled. 

“Ben,” Diego breathed out. 

Sparrow Ben was startled, seeing his own face staring back at him, and it had given Ben all the leverage he needed. 

Diego watched with glee as his Umbrella Ben punched his Sparrow Ben in the face. 

Lila walked down the street, her eyes peeled for any of the Hargreeves siblings. She had gone back to the Commission, briefly, and after spending half an hour convincing them that she was definitely not going to kill anyone, had gotten the information that the Hargreeves were back in 2019, before their sister had blown up the moon. 

And yet they weren’t fucking anywhere. 

She had searched the entire town, searching for any activation of her powers to signal them being nearby, but there was nothing. She wasn’t sure why she was going to them, exactly. Not like she was going to join their merry band of family fun. She just...needed to see Diego. 

Except that she couldn’t find hi- she stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, flipping the finger at a man who had cursed at her for stopping. There was something...faint, but familiar here. She looked around, but couldn’t see any of the Hargreeves. 

It was odd. The power was so faint that she would have assumed that whoever held it was a bit aways, but somehow, Lila could feel it within her. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the feeling, and gasped when she felt a bit of pain in her chest. She clenched her fists, willing herself to embrace the pain and go to the source of power she felt, and suddenly, the pain was gone, and so were the sounds of the people around her. 

“Uh...hello?” a voice asked, and Lila opened her eyes. There was a man around her age, she thought, though he could easily pass for younger, wearing a leather jacket and hoodie. He was skinny, almost painfully so, and his hair was combed into a coif above his head. 

“Who the hell are you?” Lila asked, and the man blinked, looking offended. 

“Who the hell are you?” He shot back. 

“I asked you first.” 

“I was here first.” 

“Well then, this has been pointless, I suppose I’ll be on my way then-” 

“No wait!” he said, desperately. “My name is Ben. Ben Hargreeves.” 

Lila looked at the man, her eyes widening. She had heard his name, briefly, from Diego when they had played a fun little foreplay game called Share Your Childhood Trauma. He had mentioned his brother had died tragically as a teenager, though he hadn’t given many details and she hadn’t pushed him on them. 

“Shouldn’t you be a teenager?” she asked, looking him up and down. Baby-faced as he was, he was definitely not a teenager. 

“Yeah, I’m trying to figure that out my- wait, how did you know that?” he asked. 

“I’m dating your brother,” Lila said. 

Ben’s eyes scrunched up in confusion. “Not Klaus for sure,” he muttered. “Definitely not Luther, ugh it’ll be disgusting if it’s Five, oh - crazy eyes, Indian... shit, it’s Lila? Wait. Leela?” 

“It’s Lila, you prick,” Lila shot out, and Ben’s eyes widened and he covered his mouth. 

“I am. So sorry,” he said. “I got so used to saying things out loud with Klaus all the time, I didn’t - it’s nice to meet you, Lila.” A brief silence followed, and Ben cleared his throat. “But, how did you get...here?” 

“I can mirror powers,” Lila said. “I was on a street and I felt your power, and here I am. Wherever here is.” 

“Oh, right,” Ben said. “This is...another dimension, apparently. I think. There were these..disembodied voices? Who told me I had been stuck here for years.” He motioned to a building in the background, and Lila squinted, trying to make out what it was. 

“Is that a hotel?” she asked, but Ben went on, not paying attention, his tone growing more hurried. 

“I always thought my power was to produce these tentacles from within me, but I wasn’t fully right. I think I summon them from this dimension. I can’t summon them in here, so they must be. I think I can travel between dimensions, I just haven’t realized it.” His voice got more desperate as he started pacing, talking more to himself than he seemed to be talking to Lila.

“I’ve been stuck here trying to get out this whole week, but I’ve essentially been in a coma all this time and I’m still too weak to try and do something I’ve never done before. But I need to find my siblings and let them know I’m all right.” Ben looked at her, his eyes wide and desperate, and Lila nodded. 

“Well, you’re in luck, I’m looking for them too,” she said. “But I don’t know how to get to them. I’m starting to think they’re not in this timeline.” 

Ben sighed, putting his face in his hands. “Shit,” he said. 

“Well, let’s not worry for now,” Lila said, suddenly desperate to reassure the man in front of her. He looked so...scared at the thought, verging on hopelessness. “Let’s just go off to that hotel, beat up some disembodied voices, and figure out how to find your siblings, yeah?” 

Ben looked at the hotel and winced. “I'm pretty sure I saw some weird magician guy run in but...sure, let’s go,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing else to do, and whatever or whoever’s in there seems to be trying to help me.” He sighed. “God, if I had listened to the voices back then I could have been home by now. I can’t believe I didn’t think about my tentacles being from another dimension.” 

“Out of curiosity, where did you think those tentacles came from?” Lila asked. 

She looked over at Ben, whose face had turned pink. “My stomach,” he mumbled.

“Wow,” Lila said. 

“I don’t- woah,” Ben said, and Lila turned, ready to tell Ben that it was okay to have dumb moments every once in a while, but her eyes widened at the sight in front of her and she took several large steps back. Ben’s hands were starting to warp, stretching and fading into nothingness. It looked like he was being pulled... somewhere. 

“How are you doing that?” she asked, and Ben shook his head, eyes just as wide. 

“I don’t think this is me,” he said, his head already beginning to stretch and fade. “But I - I think I’m going to be out of here in a few seconds.” 

Lila made a split-second decision. “Okay then, guess I’m coming with you!” she said, taking a running leap, grabbing onto Ben’s arm as he got sucked away into oblivion. 

Ben stood over his...twin…? “Dude, the hair,” he said, crouching down to look at him. “I haven’t combed my hair in years and it’s still better than this. We have a pretty good face, get a better hairstyle.” He pointed to his own hair. “Hawkins hair gel? I don’t know what they put in this stuff but it’s kept my hair looking like this for seventeen years. Or just let your hair be curly, we can rock that too. Just not this...weird MCR hairstyle you have going on here.” 

His twin groaned. “You’re giving me hair tips right now?” 

“Well,” Ben said, giving his twin a once-over. “You share a face with me, I want to make sure you’re treating it correctly.” 

His twin gave a short laugh. “Fair enough. So you’re the Ben they won’t shut up about?” 

“Guess so. And you’re…?” 

“Jay.” 

“Nice to meet you, Jay,” Ben said, smiling down at him. “Are you going to try to kill my siblings again?” 

“No,” Jay said, leaning his head back and sighing. “Let’s just say the mission’s failed on that one.” 

“Cool,” Ben said, grinning, and he turned around to face his siblings. Diego had been leaning on Lila, Luther with a big smile on his face, Allison blinking away tears, Five, Klaus, and Viktor staring at him. 

“Uh, hey guys,” Ben said, giving them a small smile and a wave. “It’s me. Ben.” 

There was a pause, and then all the siblings were running towards him. He saw Klaus and Diego move first, but Ben saw a flash and felt arms around him and he looked down to see Five, hugging him tightly. 

“Woah,” Ben laughed out, surprised by the force and the sibling, and he wrapped his arms around Five. His other siblings got there close after, Luther getting there last to grab them all up in his arms. Ben could feel Klaus’s tears on his neck, Diego and Viktor were sniffling into his jacket, Luther was crushing his body from the force, and he was pretty sure Allison and Five’s arms were going to fall off from how hard they were hugging him. He could also smell all of them, and he was pretty sure no one in that room had showered for the past few days. 

It was the best hug Ben had ever gotten, and he wavered between closing his eyes and enjoying it or keeping them open, to remember this moment forever. He went with eyes open, taking a mental picture of the hug in his head. 

“You piece of shit,” Klaus said when they broke apart from the hug. “You just had to be dramatic. You’re alive? ” 

“Apparently so,” Ben said. “It's a long story, and I don’t even really know if I get it fully yet, but I don’t think I was ever actually dead.” His stomach grumbled. “Also, I’m pretty sure I haven’t eaten for seventeen years, so I am very hungry.” 

“We’ll get you whatever you want,” Luther said earnestly, and Diego nodded. “Anything you want,” he added. 

“As soon as we can get out of here,” Five muttered. “How did you get here? And... her?” 

“That... might take a while,” Ben said. 

“We got time,” Allison said, and looked down at Jay. “And just to be safe - I heard a rumor, you all stayed down for the next...hm….hour.” 

A very, very long conversation later, Ben was pretty sure he got it. 

“So, I was stuck in the dimension world and then Klaus summoned my soul out and left my body there, then Viktor managed to send my soul back in the apocalypse, then, Allison rumored me out to here, and multiverses exist?” 

“Sounds about right,” Five said. “If you can travel through dimensions, you can probably get us out of here.” 

“I don’t think I have control over it yet,” Ben admitted. “I kind of just got there by accident.” He looked over at Jay. “Did you know we could do that?” 

“No,” Jay sighed. “I knew the tentacles came from another dimension, I didn’t realize we could go there. I could probably learn how to harness that power within a few days but…”

“Dad won’t be pleased that you failed,” Luther said solemnly, and all eyes went to Jay, his silence the confirmation that they needed. 

“You can come with us,” Ben offered. “If Allison brought me here with a rumor she can get us all out.” Allison nodded in confirmation, and Jay looked at them, confusion clear on his - their? - face. 

“I just tried to kill all your siblings, and you’re offering for us to come with you?” 

Ben shrugged, and Klaus said, “What’s a few murder attempts between family?” 

Hesitation passed Jay’s face, but he shook his head. “We can’t,” he said. “I meant what I said, I can’t be your family. But you’re right.” He tilted his head, looking at his siblings scattered around the room. “Jayme, Sloane, Christopher - all of them, I have to protect them, and we can’t stay with Dad anymore.” 

“Then where are you going to go?” Ben asked, and Jay sighed, another indication that he didn’t know. 

Lila perked up. “The hotel dimension,” she said. “Where Ben was. You can stay there for a while, figure out what your next plan is without staying here. I can mimic powers, and I clearly have a better grasp on dimension traveling than you two do, so I can take you.” She hesitated and added. “I can stay with you all.” She leaned over, trying to angle herself in view to the rest of the Sparrow Academy and waving to them all. “Hi, I’m Lila, by the way.” 

“Wait,” Diego said. “You’re not coming with us? But I thought you came here to find me.” 

Lila touched his cheek. “I love you Diego,” she said. “But this dream of being a family, I don’t know what that is right now. I need to find my own, and be my own person. Besides,” she said, glaring at Five. “There’s kind of a 5’3 piece of shit who I’d want to throttle every day if I came with you.” 

“Oh eat shit,” Five said, and Lila hissed at him before looking back at Diego. 

“I’ll come back to you, one day, I promise,” she said. “I just need a little time.” Diego and her kissed, deeply, while Five sighed in annoyance, and when they broke apart she turned to Jay. 

“So come on, little Ben lookalike and co,” she said. “I take you there, we have a fun little vacation in another world where you’re away from your dad, and then when we’re all well and ready we’ll go wherever the fuck we want.”  

A disembodied voice carried across the stage. “Jay? I kind of like that plan.” Other weak voices spoke up in agreement, and Jay tilted his head until he saw Allison. 

“Can’t you just rumor Dad into being a good person?” he asked. 

“I’ve thought about that,” Allison said. “I kind of have to say the whole I have a rumor part which would definitely tip him off, never wanted to risk it.” A sad look crossed her face. “Besides, it wouldn’t change anything, would it? What any of us went through with him?” 

Jay sighed. “No, it wouldn’t,” he admitted. “Then I don’t see what other choice we have. Can we all move now at least? We won't try to kill you,” he asked Allison. 

She rolled her eyes. “ Sure. I heard a rumor...you all could move again.” 

The Sparrow Academy breathed a sigh of relief, and moved quickly towards one another. They were like a little unit, Ben thought, as one grabbed a cube and hugged it and another gave Jay’s shoulder a small squeeze. 

“All right, good talk, well, we’ll be off then,” Lila said, clapping her hands and going off to join the Sparrow Academy. “Everyone, hold onto me or someone else. Diego, I love you-” 

“Love you too, Lila,” Diego said, blowing her a kiss. Lila winked and caught it before continuing. 

“-Five, rot in Hell for all of eternity-” 

“Stick it up your ass-” 

“Ben, nice meeting you-”

“You too, Leela, wait sorry, Lila!” 

“All right, see you, Umbrella Hargreeves,” Lila said, and a blue glow emanated from her, covering the entire Sparrow Academy. Jay looked at them, and then smirked, a mischievous look on his face. 

“By the way,” he said. “Did any of us tell you that Dad is an alien?” And with that, they were all gone. 

The Hargreeves siblings stood in the empty and half-destroyed theater, staring at the spot where Lila and the Sparrow Academy had stood, until Diego spoke. 

“Dad’s a fucking what?” 

It felt good being back in his own time. 

It felt even better being alive. 

Allison had rumored them back into their own time, and they had stood, staring at their house. 

“We did it,” Five had said, awe in his voice. “We’re actually back.” 

“No apocalypse to stop,” Viktor said in wonder. 

“Claire is back,” Allison added. 

“We should probably talk about us maybe being aliens,” Luther said. 

“Yeah,” Ben agreed, turning to his siblings. “But can we get a burger first? I’m starving.”

They had taken a pit stop for Allison to grab a phone and call Claire, promising that she would be there within the day, along with all Claire’s uncles and aunt, but an hour and a half later they were in a diner, stuffed into a booth and scarfing down food. Five scowled when Klaus suggested they just get a high chair for him and Luther, ever the peacemaker, asked for an extra chair so he could sit at the end. Klaus - who didn’t want to seem to leave Ben’s side - and Diego were next to him, and across the way were Allison, Viktor, and Five. Allison had her phone up, recording him with a huge smile as he took a bite of his burger. 

He had forgotten how much he loved burgers. The juicy tomatoes, the tartness of the pickles, the grease on his fingers, the crunch of the onions...ugh. He used to hate raw onions, but now - well, he still hated them, but he loved that he got to taste them and hate them. It made it even better, somehow.  

“Aw, look at him,” Klaus said. “He’s like a little baby bird discovering food for the first time.” 

“Shud um Klauf,” Ben said in between bites of burger, and the rest of his siblings laughed. They seemed so at peace, more than Ben had ever seen them before. 

He swallowed his bite and looked at them all. “I have so many things to say to you all,” he said. “I missed you all so much.” 

“We missed you too,” Allison said. 

“And we’re sorry,” Luther said, his face somber. “At least, I should say I’m sorry.” 

“Me too,” Diego said, and Ben stared at them in confusion. 

“About…?” 

“We let you die because we were too busy arguing about who was the leader,” Diego said. “Or, well, trapped in a dimension for years on end, but still, you spent all this time as a ghost and it was our fault.” 

Ben laughed. “Don’t apologize, you two,” he said softly. “When I was a ghost, I saw all of you. Dad had a way of keeping us apart even in the same house, and I saw how much you were all struggling. I know how much it kept you both up.” 

He looked at them all and smiled. “I would do it all over again if I had to. Don’t apologize. I loved you all completely, and you love me the same. It’s like I told Viktor, the rest is gravy.” 

Viktor's eyes filled with tears, but Allison tilted her head and said, “Did you just take that from The Haunting of Hill House?” 

“Shit,” Ben said, and Klaus started laughing. “Fine, once Klaus kept Netflix playing during one of his binges and I watched the entire thing. I didn’t think any of you watched it, okay?” 

“Oh, buddy, even I watched it, and I was on the moon,” Luther said. 

“What the fuck is this?” Five whispered to Viktor, and he shrugged. 

“You should watch it, it’s really good,” Diego said. 

Klaus raised his hand. “I vote we officially suspend the unofficial ‘Ohhhh my god Ben we’re so happy you’re alive we’ll never take you for granted again’ thing we have going on here to make fun of him for stealing a line from a show that is so popular that I remember watching it during said-binge.” 

“Hey, you could stand to keep it up a little longer,” Ben said with mock indignation. “Who had to be your mini sponsor for seventeen years? Oh yeah, me. And who thought he was a ghost and still managed to prevent the apocalypse? Oh yeah, also me!” 

“Nah, motion to insult Ben?” Klaus asked the table. 

“Motion passed,” Allison said, a twinkle in her eye. “Seriously, Ben, The Haunting of Hill House? Couldn’t find a more obscure show?” 

“Oh, okay, fine. I got roasts too, Allison,” Ben said, putting down his burger and pointing his finger at the rest of his siblings. “Don’t forget, I saw all of you when we were kids. Hey guys, want to know what Allison put on her LiveJournal account that she never showed any of you guys? Because I know her password and saw her account. Yeah, Allison wrote love songs, and hearing them made me want to die all over again.” 

“Woah, woah, woah, everyone else privated their accounts too, don’t just pick on me,” Allison said, and his other siblings broke out in excited banter, Klaus sliding over a phone for Ben to type in her account and password. 

They were all chattering over one another, and Ben leaned back, savoring the moment. They were so loud, attracting the attention of the other diners as they fought. Klaus had given up on the banter and was putting salt and pepper on his melting ice cream, proclaiming to Ben that he was making him the worst ice cream sundae Ben could ever want, just for him. Viktor was arguing with Five, a dangerous vibration of power emanating from both of them before they calmed down and ganged up on Diego, to Allison’s delight. Luther was trying to calm everyone down, until Diego said something and Luther started yelling, alternating between hissing to Diego, “I cannot believe you would say that right now, that is so hurtful,” and turning to the patrons and going, “Everything is fine, we’re all doing great, sorry, please enjoy your meal.” 

They were all so wildly insufferable, and Ben loved every second of it. 

The arguing was dying down, Luther still loudly apologizing to the patrons, and Ben grabbed the phone and grinned, opening up six different tabs. He typed with glee, knowing that this was going to kick off another round of arguing. 

He knew all of his sibling’s LiveJournal profiles.