Umbrella Academy fic: The Unsolved Equation (3/3)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
Number Seven: Vanya
Nearly a week into the past, and Vanya was as different and as much the same as she had ever been. For all that she was powerful and included and special, she was keenly aware that she was still Vanya. Still Number Seven.
Having power and embracing power were two different things.
Embracing power and controlling power were also two very different things.
It was funny. Vanya expected it to be hard. But the power came to her so inherently. Her control fell into place so intuitively. The hardest part was knowing how she fit in. Defining her role with the rest of the family. In truth, the whole thing was awkward. She felt like apologizing often -- for her rampage in the house, for killing Pogo and Grace, for essentially destroying the world -- but her siblings never wanted to hear it. They believed -- they truly believed -- they had done this together. They didn’t blame her; they blamed themselves.
It was an absolution she didn’t quite know what to do with. And no matter how easy they made it seem, she didn’t know how to be one of them. She didn’t know how to be their equals. It was the thing she’d craved all her life, and now she just felt like an imposter every time she was around them.
No doubt, it would get better. They seemed determined on that. Luther included her in all the family meetings. Diego talked about teaching her self defense. Allison took sister time seriously on a daily basis, and Klaus always made sure to invite her along to dinner at night. Their efforts were admirable, endearing.
And still totally awkward.
In this regard, she still preferred Five’s company. She always had, and though he was unconscious for six days counting, she still found him to be something of a respite. He’d never needed her to be special. He’d always just needed her to be her.
Of course, it was more enjoyable when he was conscious, but Vanya figured that just meant he needed her more than ever now. After all that had happened, she felt inclined to oblige.
Not that he’d asked, but Five was bad at asking.
Vanya, however, was pretty good at giving. A lot had changed about her, but not that.
Never that.
At Five’s bedside, she made the most of her time. She had always been forced to make her own utility in life, and she had superpowers now, but that didn’t change the fact that some habits were ingrained. She tended to Five obediently, straightening his blankets and fluffing his pillows. As per their father’s guidance, she dutifully checked Five’s vitals, finding them always to be slow, steady and unchanging.
There was also some work involved. Unconscious for this many days, their father had set up an IV, but they were still told to try to get him to drink from time to time. He had to be rolled on the bed periodically to keep him from developing any sores, and no one liked to talk about what was necessary when he had to use the bathroom.
The others would have handled it, but it made them uncomfortable. Vanya didn’t mind. Not that she liked it or anything like that, but this felt meaningful. Progress, she told herself. In 2019, she’d spent the last week of the world tearing things apart. It felt good to put things together again, one bed sheet at a time if necessary.
She was just finishing up when her father came in.
As much as she understood the rationale for not telling Sir Reginald who they were, it was still hard. Vanya, despite how much she’d learned about herself in the last week, still flinched when he came in. He’d never been a loving father, so it was understandable. And, given what she’d learned about him recently, it was almost inevitable.
It was ironic, when she thought about it. That she should be scared of him when it had been his fear of her that had started all this. He had been so terrified of her power that he’d ruined her life to account for it. If anything, Vanya should be raging mad every time she saw him.
She could never muster the emotion, however.
Innate empathy, perhaps.
Or maybe it was the knowledge that she’d destroyed the world that gave her pause. Motivations, she decided, mattered. They could not be assumed.
With some effort, she smiled at him.
Stiffly, he stood in the doorway and didn’t smile back.
“Why are you the one doing that?” he asked, nodding to the dirty pile of laundry in the corner.
“Oh,” Vanya said. “I don’t know. Someone had to.”
“So why not one of them?” her father asked. “Why you?”
“Why not me?” she returned lightly.
He sighed. “I’ve watched you do it all week without fail,” he said. “The others are more than capable, are they not?”
“I’m sure they are,” she said. “But--”
“But what?” her father asked tersely.
“But, I don’t know,” Vanya said, fumbling for an answer, some kind of explanation. “Just seems like the kind of job for me to do.”
Of all things, her father scoffed. “The kind of job for you?” he asked. “But you’re extraordinary. Clearly, the most exceptional one of the bunch.”
She blinked, frozen on the spot. The words he said were simple enough, but Vanya found them incomprehensible. “What?”
By this point, her father seemed slightly put out. He made his way into the room, walking a path to the window even while he kept his eyes on Vanya. “I have good observational skills, and my judgement is impeccable. You are a very capable woman, clearly their equal and probably their better in many regards. Yet you allow yourself to be cast in the supporting role. In here playing servant. To an unconscious boy, no less.”
She was gaping a little, eyes flickering from her father to Five and back again. “I care about him,” she explained. “I don’t mind.”
“Some self sacrifice is noble, to be sure,” her father said. He sat down in a chair, shaking his head. “But surely you see that this is beneath you. You should demand their respect.”
Vanya smiled gently, couching her response in self deprecation. “Just trying to be helpful, is all.”
Her siblings had already told her that they were opting to keep things vague with Sir Reginald. Vanya wasn’t good with lies, but, in this case, she was pretty sure the truth scared her. There was a part of her that was still afraid she was going to explode at any moment -- and the sight of her father hardly made that impulse any better.
He harrumphed. “That’s ridiculous,” he said in disapproval. “You’re merely holding yourself back.”
Her lips twisted ruefully as she settled herself down into the seat next to Five’s bed. “That might not be a bad thing,” she said, carefully omitting the fact that she’d nearly destroyed the world not so long ago. Her physical recovery, however, was enough to warrant the comment. She shrugged. “All things considered.”
He frowned, more stern still. “Who has told you that?”
She raised her eyebrows, a little taken aback. She’d forgotten, somehow, what it was like to be face to face with him. She’d forgotten more than she thought possible what his influence could be. It surprised her how he hadn’t changed.
It surprised her more how much she had.
“Well, you, I think,” she said. “When you outlined my recovery. The others -- they’ve been quite diligent about it. Making sure I’m okay.”
“Making sure you’re coddled,” he said with a terse shake of his head. “As if you are fragile and need to be protected.”
He was right -- and he was wrong. He couldn’t possibly know just how much he was of either. “They’re just trying to keep me safe,” she said, just like she was trying to keep them -- and the world at large -- safe. “They mean well.”
Her father made a sound of discontent in the back of his throat. “Anyone who keeps you from your potential is nothing short of a fool,” he said. “Such a person is also not your friend.”
Irony was what they called it. Vanya had never appreciated it quite so keenly. To be sitting here with her father, who lectured her not to trust those who sought to restrict her. When that was the very thing he’d spent most of her life doing -- to the gravest of consequences.
She expected, quite honestly, to hate him. But even now, knowing all he’d done, she couldn’t find it in her. She felt anger and rage -- yes. She didn’t trust him. But there was something there, something in what he was saying. He was telling her the truth, maybe for the first time. And it was a truth that damned him.
A truth that made him human.
After a lifetime of facing his rough edges, there was something sympathetic in his honesty. An insight into the choices he’d made and the regrets he’d never given voice to but she’d long suspected he’d had.
He was admitting it now, after all. Years before the fact and years after the fact. That he’d been a fool.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.
He removed the monocle from his eye and looked at her. “I’m sure that many people in your life will try to tell you it’s for your own good, your safety even,” he said. “But it’s their weakness, not yours, that is at fault. You would do well to remember that if you are ever to trust yourself and live up to the potential you so clearly have.”
“But what potential?” she asked, shaking her head. “You barely know me. What potential do you see in me?”
“I consider myself the best judge of character,” he said. “I can discern much with a single look, more than you can imagine.”
Vanya didn’t doubt it. “And?”
“And,” he continued, almost as if under duress. He drew a steadying breath. “There is something in your presence. Something you have sought to hide and couch, but it struggles to burst forth. You call it self control, but it is a hindrance. Your problem is not a lack of control; it is a lack of confidence. You talk about the restrictions from the others, but you are the one who lives them. You are the one holding yourself back. You have the power to overcome all of that. Remember that. For your own benefit -- and theirs. You must remember that.”
It begged the question, of course. Why had her father not trusted her as a child? Why had he sought to restrict her power? Why had he formed her with a lie and left her to wallow in her own sense of inadequacy?
These things he was talking about -- they came from him.
The truth of it was -- and she could see it in him now, sense it -- he’d been afraid. Smart, logical, insightful, powerful -- and he’d been terrified of a four year old child. He’d seen her potential and he’d balked. He’d looked at her future and he’d cowered.
It was easy to hate him for it, all he’d done to her.
But she found now, looking at him steady, she took pity on him.
Clearly, he had failed her. He had failed all of them -- and the world.
Mostly, though, he’d failed himself.
Together, in this room, his future was full of that failure.
Her future, however, was uncharted, unknown.
Where his potential was spent.
Hers had yet to be realized.
“I will remember,” she said softly, surely. She hesitated; she smiled. She wasn’t sure why -- gratitude didn’t seem appropriate, yet she could think of nothing else. “Thank you.”
It was almost gratifying when he looked taken aback. “But I have done very little. Hardly anything, if you must know.”
That was true; he was right.
As a father, he’d been the worst. Abominable. Abusive. Inexcusable.
That was the thing, though. Even villains -- the worst of the worst -- were human. Vanya would know. She was the one who blew up the world.
She was coming full circle. All the lies between them, and here they were, at the inevitable truth that would save them both.
“Maybe,” she conceded, because this wasn’t her attempt at absolution. Her father needed wanted nor deserved that. But this was acceptance. “But it still matters.”
Now, he merely looked perturbed. “Don’t make a mistake,” he said sternly. “I have no pretense of being a hero here, my apparent goodwill for you and your young companion here notwithstanding. I have my reasons.”
She nodded. “I know,” she said. “But maybe the world doesn’t have to be made of heroes. You know? Maybe it can just be made up of ordinary people doing ordinary acts of kindness.”
Looking truly uncomfortable now, Reginald scowled. “Your sentiment is infuriating,” he said. “Let me know if the boy wakes up, and I’ll be on my way now.”
He left without another word, leaving Vanya watching after him. She chuckled, sitting back in the chair and turning her attention back to Five. “I know you brought us here to change the future, I get that,” she said. “But I think you may have just helped us changed the past, too.”
On the bed, Five didn’t flicker and her smile faltered. She sat forward again, gathering up his limp fingers and pressing them into her own.
“I’ve spent this week looking back, terrified,” she told him. “But I’m ready to move forward now.”
She reached over and picked up the piece of paper. The notes were nothing she could make sense of, but she laid the paper on his chest.
“Wake up, Five,” she said. “Finish the equation. Take us back.”
She pressed her lips against his hand and smiled once more.
“I’m ready for you to take us home.”
Number Five, part two: Number Five
Then, not unexpectedly, Five woke up.
He was aware primarily that he was, in fact, alive. Moreover, he had the vaguest notion that his actions had been, for the moment, successful. He was also keenly aware of the fact that he was weak and hurt. Namely because he felt like shit.
The weariness was pervasive, and though he opened his eyes quite abruptly, that was all he was able to do for several protracted moments. Lying on his back, the exhaustion almost saturated him, and he felt a heaviness that was hard to shake. His mouth was dry; his fingers were cold. Though his mental processes were fully intact, he was clouded by the fuzziness of prolonged unconsciousness.
How long, Five couldn’t say. Five had a tenuous relationship with time. He knew time to be fickle, and for as much as he knew, he’d been unconscious for days or more.
Given the scale of what he’d attempted, it was probably no surprise. It was, however, rather inconvenient. Working on deepening his breaths, Five found the intake of oxygen to clarify his mind while it magnified how utterly uncomfortable he was. Whatever he’d done to himself in his haste to save his siblings and the world, it had taken quite the toll on him.
Which begged the question, what had he actually done?
Obviously, he had managed to get them back through time since they weren’t at the end of the world. But how far back he’d managed to go was a guess he didn’t dare hazard yet, not without his equation in hand. That would explain to him where he’d gone wrong. It would also help him start to put together a better equation, fill out the variables necessary to get them all back home.
Sitting up was no easy task, but Five had always been tenacious and fairly oblivious to his physical impairments until they made him drop to the floor, writhing in pain. Since he was already in bed, there didn’t seem to be much risk of that at the moment. He felt for his pockets first, since that was where he’d left the equation, but he quickly realized that he’d been stripped and changed.
That was less than ideal, but he didn’t have time for vanity. Squinting, he looked around his bed for any sign of his clothing -- and, by extension, his precious equation. He found that he couldn’t find his clothes -- the room was unsettlingly familiar to him, but devoid of any personal effects -- but what he did see was Sir Reginald Hargreeves himself.
In the flesh.
Five blinked, squinting a little more to clear his vision.
Well, that explained the familiarity anyway. He’d blinked them out of the end of the world and back into their father’s house. The irony was almost pathetic.
Worse, the old man didn’t look quite as old, but he seemed just as dour. And, to make matters even more exciting, he was holding Five’s equation in his hand, turning it over plain as day.
“Ah,” his father said. “You’re awake. Finally.”
His father’s expectant attitude did little to quell Five’s uncertainty about the situation. Had he jumped them into their own lifespans? Were their younger selves running around? Did Sir Reginald know about their failed attempt to stop the apocalypse? When Five had predicted that things were going to get messy, just how messy had they gotten?
Tentative, Five swallowed, though it did nothing to appease the dryness in his throat. Licking his cracked lips, he propped himself up a little. “How long was I out?”
“A week,” Sir Reginald replied impassively. “Your companions, though an odd mix, are quite fine. They are simply worried about you despite the fact that I have assured them that you are fine.”
Companions -- it was a rather personal delineation. This suggested that Sir Reginald did not know who they were. This further suggested that Five had managed to avoid mixing their timelines and jumped them to a point prior to his father’s decision to adopt seven super powered babies from around the world.
It also laid bare a bit of his siblings’ choices over the past week. Sure, it was nice that they were worried about him, but practically speaking, they had bigger concerns. No doubt, his siblings have been flailing all week without him. They’re time travel novices, even Klaus, who managed to break every rule of time travel ever. It seemed likely that this time they’re at least taking a conservative approach and have confessed to nothing to their unwitting host, as likely and unlikely though he was.
Still, Five couldn’t deny that his own naivete was glaringly obvious at the moment. “A week?” he asked, feeling duly annoyed with himself. “I’m slipping.”
“Hm,” his father said casually. “Well, time travel is a formidable foe.”
Five should have been surprised.
He wasn’t.
Time travel, he supposed, had deadened his sense of surprise. After accidentally jumping his way into the apocalypse instead of eating dinner with his siblings, everything else seemed rather doable to him.
It was more than that, however.
The idea that Sir Reginald, in his crotchety detachment, had known the end seemed obvious to him now.
Of course Sir Reginald had known about the end of the world.
Why else would a man who hated children adopt seven of them while overtly training them to save the world?
If Five had his full energy back, he could probably speculate a few reasons why. Instead, he employed his best investigated tactics. Narrowing his eyes, he ignored the dull ache in his head and fixated on his father instead. “Time travel?”
“Yes, I know,” his father said, dismissively now. “The others have been quite vague on most of the details but I figured that much out for myself.”
Five arched his eyebrows skeptically. It did nothing for his headache, but he was too damn tired to split hairs about it. “What would you know about it anyway?”
It was a comment that was easy to write off as flippant, but Five really did want to know.
His father, bastard that he was, apparently wanted to play coy. “More than you, apparently.”
Flippancy, it seemed, ran in the family. Five always insisted his assholery was inherited.
Still, the old man had revealed more than Five now. “So you do know about it,” he said, seizing on the idea as validation for the suspicions he’d harbored since Klaus had conjured their dad back in 2019.
His father rolled his eyes. “Spare me your facile deductions,” he said. “You’re the one making the insinuations, not me.”
There was validity to that, but Five was not going to be put off like he was still an overly inquisitive child, asking questions at all the wrong times. He was going to ask questions during dinner, damn it. And any other time he pleased. “But you brought it up.”
With a weary shake of his head, his father dismissed the controversy entirely. “I’m not sure it matters what I know of it,” he said. He peered at Five keenly through the monocle. “Your attempt, however, seems to have been less than successful.”
It wasn’t that Five was offended at having his flaws pointed out. It was that the process was limited and failed to engage any real point. “Well, of course it was,” he replied tersely. “It was a last minute calculation. An improvisation. I had to rely on my memory and emotional reflex.”
That would explain not only why he failed but also the ways in which he succeeded. For lack of an appropriately conceived destination, it only made sense that he had centered on something familiar.
His father held up a sheet of paper. It was messier than Five remembered, but he still recognized it.
“This calculation?” his father asked, even though it was obvious he already knew the answer to his question.
Five frowned, feeling a little perturbed. Clearly, his calculation had been passed around this week. And, by the look of Klaus’ visible doodles, it had not been treated with due respect.
Now his old man was holding onto it for unknown reasons.
It was dubious to say the least.
“It was unfinished, I told you,” Five said, more than a little sulky. He knew that he looked 14, but having to justify himself to his father was something he’d never been good at. “The situation became dire much faster than I anticipated. I was forced to improvise. The fate of the world was in the balance.”
As valid as the explanation was, his father was not impressed.
This was hardly surprising.
His father was never -- never -- impressed.
“So, you aren’t surprised, then,” his father said with an air of authority and possibly a hint of triumph. “With your failure.”
At this point, Five didn’t have the energy to rise to the bait. At 13, his old man could goad him into a lot of things, but Five was pushing 60 now. Plus, he’d been, more or less, in a coma for a week. This whole situation was shit.
And circuitous.
This wasn’t about Five’s failure.
No, this was about his father’s perception of Five’s failure.
If his father was a truly innocent bystander, he would have no judgment on this situation. He’d have no context by which to make his conclusion. Which meant that Reginald Hargreeves wasn’t an innocent bystander. He wasn’t inconsequential. He wasn’t a coincidence.
He knew.
About time travel.
About a lot more than time travel.
“That’s not really the question, though,” he said. He paused, tilting his head curiously. “No, the real question is why aren’t you surprised. Six strangers show in your foyer and you take it all in stride, like it’s no big deal. They start talking about time travel, and you still act like everything is perfectly normal.”
His father finally looked pleased for the first time in this whole conversation. “Ah, now you’re finally asking the good questions.”
He was toying with Five. Leading him to the right conclusion. The only conclusion. Five shook his head, still clearing the last of the cobwebs. “You know about this,” he said. “You know about all of this.”
His father feigned confusion with lackluster appeal. “All of what?”
It only made Five more adamant. “This,” he said, jabbing his finger at the paper in his father’s hands. “This,” he said, gesturing at it again with vigor. “Us.”
“You?”
Five did not back down. “You know who we are, don’t you?”
His father didn’t miss a beat. “You mean you’re not six wayfarers relying on my innate sense of humanity?”
That would be laughable, but Five was not amused. He didn’t have the time or the energy to be amused. “No, you know we’re siblings,” Five said, throwing all caution to the wind. Thoughts of entanglements, of muddying the timelines -- Five was too confident that he was right to worry about being wrong. That might come back to bite him in the ass, but he was all in for now. “You know we’re Hargreeves. That’s why you haven’t kicked us out, and only that.”
The fact that his father could muster up anything resembling insult was a testament to the fact that their old man was a better actor than he’d ever let on. “You doubt my generosity?”
“Yes,” Five said bluntly. Even if he had a penchant for artifice -- which, for the record, he did not -- he was far too tired to attempt it.
For some reason, that seemed to bemuse the old man. “You are the only one, then.”
Five scoffed, but he didn’t find that hard to believe. “The others are emotional and naive,” he said flatly. “And I think I’ve wasted enough time here, lying in this best. It’s better to put our cards on the table.”
He hesitated, deciding just how much he wanted to reveal.
Five really always had been an all-or-nothing type.
“You know about the apocalypse,” he blurted.
There was no surprise. There was no confusion. Instead, Reginald sat back in his chair and stroked his beard. “Ah,” he said. “So you are not playing the bluff.”
“Of course not,” Five said. “You know about the apocalypse in 2019, and you want to stop it.”
“Well,” his father said, shrugging one shoulder. “Is that so strange?”
“No,” Five said. “But it is strange how you go about it. The way you raised us, the ambiguity of what you did to us, your decision to kill yourself to bring us all back in time--”
“None of which are actions I have completed yet,” his father pointed out, though his lack of surprise was telling.
“But you’re doing it now, too,” he said. “Taking us in, playing along with the lies. Surely, there are better ways to accomplish our mutual goals.”
His father did not look remotely convinced. “Have you come asking for favors then?”
“I didn’t mean to come here at all,” Five snapped back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I told you, it was an accident.”
“Oh, but was it?” his father countered. “That you should end up here, in your father’s house?”
Five grit his teeth together, but could find no grounds to deny it. “Maybe I thought you’d help us.”
“And haven’t I?” his father returned.
“Not enough,” Five retorted. “Tell us what we need to know.”
“You are from a future I have not even lived yet,” Sir Reginald replied. “What could I possibly tell you that you don’t know?”
Five nodded his head at the paper in his father’s hands. “Finish the equation,” he said. “You know just as well as I do that it’s our ticket home. Our only ticket home. And if we can get back to 2019 safely and in one piece, we can make sure that the apocalypse is averted.”
His father raised his eyebrows, as if the notion was too much. “You put a lot of faith in one equation.”
“You’re the one reading it while I’m in a coma,” Five shot back, his confidence growing where hsi physical weakness still persisted. He’d been unconscious for a week, but this had been coming longer still. All of Five’s life, all the equations, and the answer was coming out the same. “All that you know? You can finish the equation. I know you can.”
His father looked at the paper, turning it over slowly and steadily in his hands. “I do have my own calculations regarding such matters, to be sure.”
“Then why didn’t you stop this?” Five asked, the confidence peaking into incredulity. It was one thing to accept that someone had more power than he did. It was another to reconcile why they failed to employ such power for a good cause. It was the reason he’d broken with the Handler, in the end. It would be the sticking point that would either reconcile Five to his father or separate them forever.
Because Five, at his core, was a pragmatic.
He was, however, also a humanist.
In short, he believed in people.
And he believed in protecting the greater good at all costs.
Anyone who threatened that -- be they friend or foe -- would never maintain Five’s loyalty.
Ever.
“I did,” his father replied shortly. “By your own account.”
That answer was annoying, to say the least.
It was also, unfortunately, not untrue.
The truth, Five knew from experience, could be quite annoying when you got right down to it.
He sighed, laying any remaining pretense aside. “Are you from the future then?” he asked. “Or are you just able to see it?”
“Ah, well,” his father said, reverting to coyness again. “Some things you really have to figure out the hard way. That does seem to be the way you learn.”
Five’s lip curled. “You really are a bastard.”
“Such can be said of heroes and villains alike,” his father mused from his chair.
Five frowned. “And you really don’t care which?”
At this, his father looked somewhat disappointed. “That’s quite a question coming from you,” he observed. “But really, as long as there’s an acceptable ending, perception is really very moot.”
“But the ending isn’t written yet,” Five implored him. He uncrossed his arms and gestured at the paper again. “You can change things. You can make a better ending.”
“So you truly believe, then,” his father said, “that you can stop this apocalypse?”
“Yes,” Five said. He exhaled heavily at the thought of it, and when he blinked, his eyes were burning. “I have to believe that I can help save the world. Just like I have to believe that I can save us. I mean, think about it. You can bring your family back together, make us a real family for once. You never managed that with all your success. You never managed it.”
His father shifted, for the first time looking uncomfortable. “That’s a vain suggestion,” he said, a little cold. “You could hardly make any judgement of me. You don’t know all the variables.”
Five’s brow darkened again. “What, then? You agree with the Commission? Just let the end come?”
Sir Reginald clicked his tongue and huffed. “Not in the least,” he said. “But just because they are horribly and tragically wrong does not mean you are by extension correct.”
Five sighed again, his energy flagging once again. He was hungry; he was exhausted. “Look, I’m just trying to do the best I can here.”
“Yes, yes,” his father said, seizing upon that point with some vigor. “And I’m trying my absolute best to let you do it.”
Slumping back, Five couldn’t maintain his composure any longer. “So you really won’t help me? You won’t solve the equation?”
“I have helped you,” his father said. He tilted his head critically. “I have sheltered you twice now, both times when you were incapable of helping yourself.”
“If you’re referring to my childhood, I beg to argue,” Five said. “My siblings are nearly nonfunctional thanks to you.”
“Nonsense,” Sir Reginald replied flatly. “I helped them too.”
Five snorted. “They’re a mess, thanks to you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Seven messes that somehow saved the world when it mattered most.”
Five reached up, rubbing his forehead. “So it’s back to the ends and means.”
“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” his father snapped. “You’re wallowing in self pity, and I can’t stomach it. Now that you’re well, you will want to get your siblings home as soon as possible, a task you cannot accomplish while lying in the bed like some invalid.”
Five dropped his hand, lifting his eyes wearily back to his father. “But I haven’t finished the equation, remember?”
“Haven’t you?” his father said, handing the paper back to him. He got to his feet, making his way to the door. “I expect you all to be gone by dinner or I’ll turn you out on the street before nightfall. Do not try my patience, Number Five.”
Dejectedly, Five looked at the paper, expecting to see his own failure written out plain and clear. Instead, he saw Luther’s notes. He saw Diego’s simple arthimetic. He saw Allison’s questions. He saw Klaus’ doodles. He saw Ben’s references. And he saw Vanya’s dried tears.
And there, in the middle of his equation, one blank is filled in.
Just one blank.
One missing variable
Defined.
Five stared at it, coming to terms with it. His mind reeled as the numbers fell into place, and suddenly the answer became painfully, blindingly obvious.
It was done.
One defined variable and all the other answers came crashing into place, like they’d been that way all along.
Gaping, he looked up. His father was still standing in the doorway, like he was waiting for Five.
“What did you do?” Five asked him, almost breathless.
“Nothing much,” his father commented dryly. “One simple variable.”
“That solved everything,” Five said. He let out a breath and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to solve this equation my whole life.”
“Indeed,” his father mused. “Well, then I think you’ve been searching long enough. It’s time to wake up, boy. Stop living in the past. Stop living in the future?”
Five wrinkled his brow, overcome by the emotion and unable to make it parse. “Then what’s left?”
His father inclined his head. “Right now,” he said, and he turned to leave again. “You have exactly three hours before my kindness has been worn out. Don’t try my patience with the deadline. Three hours!”
Five looked back down as his father’s footsteps dissipated down the hall. It was hilariously simple, really. It was amazing how easy it was not to see the most obvious things. In a matter of minutes, the mess had been put into order.
Maybe it was fate.
Maybe it was his father’s machinations.
Maybe it was a series of choices they had all made.
Maybe it was the past; maybe it was the future.
Five folded the paper in his hand and smiled.
Mostly, it was right now.
Number Eight: Sir Reginald
They left upon demand, and they left without much fanfare. It was unclear whether or not the child had told the others the truth, but it hardly seemed to matter. He’d already given them what they needed, each and every one.
You could call that sentiment, perhaps, but Sir Reginald was a practical man. He was a man with a singular focus. What he had given to them was simply what they needed to execute the plan.
That was what this was, what it had always been.
A plan.
To save the world.
The irony was, of course, that it was a world he would never see, and he hated to think, sometimes, about the trials he had to endure to get there. For it was not a desirable task, raising children, setting them against each other and bringing them together again. He would never tell them he loved them; he would never utter words that suggested he cared.
Yet, it was a task he would willingly endure. Because for all that he gave them their purpose, they would fulfill his. It was a satisfying complementarity, at least.
He’d never had need for justification. He had no moral quandaries. There were compromises and sacrifices, and he wondered if he’d still be this resolved when he collected them as babies, when he plucked them from their mothers arms and molded them into beings that could save the world at any cost.
The only thing he could give in exchange was the semblance of family.
He liked to think that he achieved it, in the end and in the beginning. For they stumbled into this house a week ago as seven separate entities. They had left tonight as a unit.
It felt like he’d finally finished the equation that had eluded him all his life.
Settling down, Sir Reginald ate his dinner alone at the grand table in the dining hall. He ate under the ornate ceilings, listening to records about mountain climbing while his soup cooled and he cut his steak into strips. The long table in front of him was empty, and he thought how he would have to turn out the sheets tomorrow, clean up the bathrooms.
He took a bite of food and chewed. He swallowed.
It was quite empty now. Quite still. Plenty of time to think. Plenty of space to exist.
He could hear his own heart, in fact, echoing against the cavernous inside of his chest.
Thump, thump, thump.
Yes, he was quite alone again.
At last, he told himself ruefully.
He reached for his wine and took a sip, smiling just a little as he put it down.
But not for long.
PART TWO
PART THREE
Number Seven: Vanya
Nearly a week into the past, and Vanya was as different and as much the same as she had ever been. For all that she was powerful and included and special, she was keenly aware that she was still Vanya. Still Number Seven.
Having power and embracing power were two different things.
Embracing power and controlling power were also two very different things.
It was funny. Vanya expected it to be hard. But the power came to her so inherently. Her control fell into place so intuitively. The hardest part was knowing how she fit in. Defining her role with the rest of the family. In truth, the whole thing was awkward. She felt like apologizing often -- for her rampage in the house, for killing Pogo and Grace, for essentially destroying the world -- but her siblings never wanted to hear it. They believed -- they truly believed -- they had done this together. They didn’t blame her; they blamed themselves.
It was an absolution she didn’t quite know what to do with. And no matter how easy they made it seem, she didn’t know how to be one of them. She didn’t know how to be their equals. It was the thing she’d craved all her life, and now she just felt like an imposter every time she was around them.
No doubt, it would get better. They seemed determined on that. Luther included her in all the family meetings. Diego talked about teaching her self defense. Allison took sister time seriously on a daily basis, and Klaus always made sure to invite her along to dinner at night. Their efforts were admirable, endearing.
And still totally awkward.
In this regard, she still preferred Five’s company. She always had, and though he was unconscious for six days counting, she still found him to be something of a respite. He’d never needed her to be special. He’d always just needed her to be her.
Of course, it was more enjoyable when he was conscious, but Vanya figured that just meant he needed her more than ever now. After all that had happened, she felt inclined to oblige.
Not that he’d asked, but Five was bad at asking.
Vanya, however, was pretty good at giving. A lot had changed about her, but not that.
Never that.
At Five’s bedside, she made the most of her time. She had always been forced to make her own utility in life, and she had superpowers now, but that didn’t change the fact that some habits were ingrained. She tended to Five obediently, straightening his blankets and fluffing his pillows. As per their father’s guidance, she dutifully checked Five’s vitals, finding them always to be slow, steady and unchanging.
There was also some work involved. Unconscious for this many days, their father had set up an IV, but they were still told to try to get him to drink from time to time. He had to be rolled on the bed periodically to keep him from developing any sores, and no one liked to talk about what was necessary when he had to use the bathroom.
The others would have handled it, but it made them uncomfortable. Vanya didn’t mind. Not that she liked it or anything like that, but this felt meaningful. Progress, she told herself. In 2019, she’d spent the last week of the world tearing things apart. It felt good to put things together again, one bed sheet at a time if necessary.
She was just finishing up when her father came in.
As much as she understood the rationale for not telling Sir Reginald who they were, it was still hard. Vanya, despite how much she’d learned about herself in the last week, still flinched when he came in. He’d never been a loving father, so it was understandable. And, given what she’d learned about him recently, it was almost inevitable.
It was ironic, when she thought about it. That she should be scared of him when it had been his fear of her that had started all this. He had been so terrified of her power that he’d ruined her life to account for it. If anything, Vanya should be raging mad every time she saw him.
She could never muster the emotion, however.
Innate empathy, perhaps.
Or maybe it was the knowledge that she’d destroyed the world that gave her pause. Motivations, she decided, mattered. They could not be assumed.
With some effort, she smiled at him.
Stiffly, he stood in the doorway and didn’t smile back.
“Why are you the one doing that?” he asked, nodding to the dirty pile of laundry in the corner.
“Oh,” Vanya said. “I don’t know. Someone had to.”
“So why not one of them?” her father asked. “Why you?”
“Why not me?” she returned lightly.
He sighed. “I’ve watched you do it all week without fail,” he said. “The others are more than capable, are they not?”
“I’m sure they are,” she said. “But--”
“But what?” her father asked tersely.
“But, I don’t know,” Vanya said, fumbling for an answer, some kind of explanation. “Just seems like the kind of job for me to do.”
Of all things, her father scoffed. “The kind of job for you?” he asked. “But you’re extraordinary. Clearly, the most exceptional one of the bunch.”
She blinked, frozen on the spot. The words he said were simple enough, but Vanya found them incomprehensible. “What?”
By this point, her father seemed slightly put out. He made his way into the room, walking a path to the window even while he kept his eyes on Vanya. “I have good observational skills, and my judgement is impeccable. You are a very capable woman, clearly their equal and probably their better in many regards. Yet you allow yourself to be cast in the supporting role. In here playing servant. To an unconscious boy, no less.”
She was gaping a little, eyes flickering from her father to Five and back again. “I care about him,” she explained. “I don’t mind.”
“Some self sacrifice is noble, to be sure,” her father said. He sat down in a chair, shaking his head. “But surely you see that this is beneath you. You should demand their respect.”
Vanya smiled gently, couching her response in self deprecation. “Just trying to be helpful, is all.”
Her siblings had already told her that they were opting to keep things vague with Sir Reginald. Vanya wasn’t good with lies, but, in this case, she was pretty sure the truth scared her. There was a part of her that was still afraid she was going to explode at any moment -- and the sight of her father hardly made that impulse any better.
He harrumphed. “That’s ridiculous,” he said in disapproval. “You’re merely holding yourself back.”
Her lips twisted ruefully as she settled herself down into the seat next to Five’s bed. “That might not be a bad thing,” she said, carefully omitting the fact that she’d nearly destroyed the world not so long ago. Her physical recovery, however, was enough to warrant the comment. She shrugged. “All things considered.”
He frowned, more stern still. “Who has told you that?”
She raised her eyebrows, a little taken aback. She’d forgotten, somehow, what it was like to be face to face with him. She’d forgotten more than she thought possible what his influence could be. It surprised her how he hadn’t changed.
It surprised her more how much she had.
“Well, you, I think,” she said. “When you outlined my recovery. The others -- they’ve been quite diligent about it. Making sure I’m okay.”
“Making sure you’re coddled,” he said with a terse shake of his head. “As if you are fragile and need to be protected.”
He was right -- and he was wrong. He couldn’t possibly know just how much he was of either. “They’re just trying to keep me safe,” she said, just like she was trying to keep them -- and the world at large -- safe. “They mean well.”
Her father made a sound of discontent in the back of his throat. “Anyone who keeps you from your potential is nothing short of a fool,” he said. “Such a person is also not your friend.”
Irony was what they called it. Vanya had never appreciated it quite so keenly. To be sitting here with her father, who lectured her not to trust those who sought to restrict her. When that was the very thing he’d spent most of her life doing -- to the gravest of consequences.
She expected, quite honestly, to hate him. But even now, knowing all he’d done, she couldn’t find it in her. She felt anger and rage -- yes. She didn’t trust him. But there was something there, something in what he was saying. He was telling her the truth, maybe for the first time. And it was a truth that damned him.
A truth that made him human.
After a lifetime of facing his rough edges, there was something sympathetic in his honesty. An insight into the choices he’d made and the regrets he’d never given voice to but she’d long suspected he’d had.
He was admitting it now, after all. Years before the fact and years after the fact. That he’d been a fool.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.
He removed the monocle from his eye and looked at her. “I’m sure that many people in your life will try to tell you it’s for your own good, your safety even,” he said. “But it’s their weakness, not yours, that is at fault. You would do well to remember that if you are ever to trust yourself and live up to the potential you so clearly have.”
“But what potential?” she asked, shaking her head. “You barely know me. What potential do you see in me?”
“I consider myself the best judge of character,” he said. “I can discern much with a single look, more than you can imagine.”
Vanya didn’t doubt it. “And?”
“And,” he continued, almost as if under duress. He drew a steadying breath. “There is something in your presence. Something you have sought to hide and couch, but it struggles to burst forth. You call it self control, but it is a hindrance. Your problem is not a lack of control; it is a lack of confidence. You talk about the restrictions from the others, but you are the one who lives them. You are the one holding yourself back. You have the power to overcome all of that. Remember that. For your own benefit -- and theirs. You must remember that.”
It begged the question, of course. Why had her father not trusted her as a child? Why had he sought to restrict her power? Why had he formed her with a lie and left her to wallow in her own sense of inadequacy?
These things he was talking about -- they came from him.
The truth of it was -- and she could see it in him now, sense it -- he’d been afraid. Smart, logical, insightful, powerful -- and he’d been terrified of a four year old child. He’d seen her potential and he’d balked. He’d looked at her future and he’d cowered.
It was easy to hate him for it, all he’d done to her.
But she found now, looking at him steady, she took pity on him.
Clearly, he had failed her. He had failed all of them -- and the world.
Mostly, though, he’d failed himself.
Together, in this room, his future was full of that failure.
Her future, however, was uncharted, unknown.
Where his potential was spent.
Hers had yet to be realized.
“I will remember,” she said softly, surely. She hesitated; she smiled. She wasn’t sure why -- gratitude didn’t seem appropriate, yet she could think of nothing else. “Thank you.”
It was almost gratifying when he looked taken aback. “But I have done very little. Hardly anything, if you must know.”
That was true; he was right.
As a father, he’d been the worst. Abominable. Abusive. Inexcusable.
That was the thing, though. Even villains -- the worst of the worst -- were human. Vanya would know. She was the one who blew up the world.
She was coming full circle. All the lies between them, and here they were, at the inevitable truth that would save them both.
“Maybe,” she conceded, because this wasn’t her attempt at absolution. Her father needed wanted nor deserved that. But this was acceptance. “But it still matters.”
Now, he merely looked perturbed. “Don’t make a mistake,” he said sternly. “I have no pretense of being a hero here, my apparent goodwill for you and your young companion here notwithstanding. I have my reasons.”
She nodded. “I know,” she said. “But maybe the world doesn’t have to be made of heroes. You know? Maybe it can just be made up of ordinary people doing ordinary acts of kindness.”
Looking truly uncomfortable now, Reginald scowled. “Your sentiment is infuriating,” he said. “Let me know if the boy wakes up, and I’ll be on my way now.”
He left without another word, leaving Vanya watching after him. She chuckled, sitting back in the chair and turning her attention back to Five. “I know you brought us here to change the future, I get that,” she said. “But I think you may have just helped us changed the past, too.”
On the bed, Five didn’t flicker and her smile faltered. She sat forward again, gathering up his limp fingers and pressing them into her own.
“I’ve spent this week looking back, terrified,” she told him. “But I’m ready to move forward now.”
She reached over and picked up the piece of paper. The notes were nothing she could make sense of, but she laid the paper on his chest.
“Wake up, Five,” she said. “Finish the equation. Take us back.”
She pressed her lips against his hand and smiled once more.
“I’m ready for you to take us home.”
Number Five, part two: Number Five
Then, not unexpectedly, Five woke up.
He was aware primarily that he was, in fact, alive. Moreover, he had the vaguest notion that his actions had been, for the moment, successful. He was also keenly aware of the fact that he was weak and hurt. Namely because he felt like shit.
The weariness was pervasive, and though he opened his eyes quite abruptly, that was all he was able to do for several protracted moments. Lying on his back, the exhaustion almost saturated him, and he felt a heaviness that was hard to shake. His mouth was dry; his fingers were cold. Though his mental processes were fully intact, he was clouded by the fuzziness of prolonged unconsciousness.
How long, Five couldn’t say. Five had a tenuous relationship with time. He knew time to be fickle, and for as much as he knew, he’d been unconscious for days or more.
Given the scale of what he’d attempted, it was probably no surprise. It was, however, rather inconvenient. Working on deepening his breaths, Five found the intake of oxygen to clarify his mind while it magnified how utterly uncomfortable he was. Whatever he’d done to himself in his haste to save his siblings and the world, it had taken quite the toll on him.
Which begged the question, what had he actually done?
Obviously, he had managed to get them back through time since they weren’t at the end of the world. But how far back he’d managed to go was a guess he didn’t dare hazard yet, not without his equation in hand. That would explain to him where he’d gone wrong. It would also help him start to put together a better equation, fill out the variables necessary to get them all back home.
Sitting up was no easy task, but Five had always been tenacious and fairly oblivious to his physical impairments until they made him drop to the floor, writhing in pain. Since he was already in bed, there didn’t seem to be much risk of that at the moment. He felt for his pockets first, since that was where he’d left the equation, but he quickly realized that he’d been stripped and changed.
That was less than ideal, but he didn’t have time for vanity. Squinting, he looked around his bed for any sign of his clothing -- and, by extension, his precious equation. He found that he couldn’t find his clothes -- the room was unsettlingly familiar to him, but devoid of any personal effects -- but what he did see was Sir Reginald Hargreeves himself.
In the flesh.
Five blinked, squinting a little more to clear his vision.
Well, that explained the familiarity anyway. He’d blinked them out of the end of the world and back into their father’s house. The irony was almost pathetic.
Worse, the old man didn’t look quite as old, but he seemed just as dour. And, to make matters even more exciting, he was holding Five’s equation in his hand, turning it over plain as day.
“Ah,” his father said. “You’re awake. Finally.”
His father’s expectant attitude did little to quell Five’s uncertainty about the situation. Had he jumped them into their own lifespans? Were their younger selves running around? Did Sir Reginald know about their failed attempt to stop the apocalypse? When Five had predicted that things were going to get messy, just how messy had they gotten?
Tentative, Five swallowed, though it did nothing to appease the dryness in his throat. Licking his cracked lips, he propped himself up a little. “How long was I out?”
“A week,” Sir Reginald replied impassively. “Your companions, though an odd mix, are quite fine. They are simply worried about you despite the fact that I have assured them that you are fine.”
Companions -- it was a rather personal delineation. This suggested that Sir Reginald did not know who they were. This further suggested that Five had managed to avoid mixing their timelines and jumped them to a point prior to his father’s decision to adopt seven super powered babies from around the world.
It also laid bare a bit of his siblings’ choices over the past week. Sure, it was nice that they were worried about him, but practically speaking, they had bigger concerns. No doubt, his siblings have been flailing all week without him. They’re time travel novices, even Klaus, who managed to break every rule of time travel ever. It seemed likely that this time they’re at least taking a conservative approach and have confessed to nothing to their unwitting host, as likely and unlikely though he was.
Still, Five couldn’t deny that his own naivete was glaringly obvious at the moment. “A week?” he asked, feeling duly annoyed with himself. “I’m slipping.”
“Hm,” his father said casually. “Well, time travel is a formidable foe.”
Five should have been surprised.
He wasn’t.
Time travel, he supposed, had deadened his sense of surprise. After accidentally jumping his way into the apocalypse instead of eating dinner with his siblings, everything else seemed rather doable to him.
It was more than that, however.
The idea that Sir Reginald, in his crotchety detachment, had known the end seemed obvious to him now.
Of course Sir Reginald had known about the end of the world.
Why else would a man who hated children adopt seven of them while overtly training them to save the world?
If Five had his full energy back, he could probably speculate a few reasons why. Instead, he employed his best investigated tactics. Narrowing his eyes, he ignored the dull ache in his head and fixated on his father instead. “Time travel?”
“Yes, I know,” his father said, dismissively now. “The others have been quite vague on most of the details but I figured that much out for myself.”
Five arched his eyebrows skeptically. It did nothing for his headache, but he was too damn tired to split hairs about it. “What would you know about it anyway?”
It was a comment that was easy to write off as flippant, but Five really did want to know.
His father, bastard that he was, apparently wanted to play coy. “More than you, apparently.”
Flippancy, it seemed, ran in the family. Five always insisted his assholery was inherited.
Still, the old man had revealed more than Five now. “So you do know about it,” he said, seizing on the idea as validation for the suspicions he’d harbored since Klaus had conjured their dad back in 2019.
His father rolled his eyes. “Spare me your facile deductions,” he said. “You’re the one making the insinuations, not me.”
There was validity to that, but Five was not going to be put off like he was still an overly inquisitive child, asking questions at all the wrong times. He was going to ask questions during dinner, damn it. And any other time he pleased. “But you brought it up.”
With a weary shake of his head, his father dismissed the controversy entirely. “I’m not sure it matters what I know of it,” he said. He peered at Five keenly through the monocle. “Your attempt, however, seems to have been less than successful.”
It wasn’t that Five was offended at having his flaws pointed out. It was that the process was limited and failed to engage any real point. “Well, of course it was,” he replied tersely. “It was a last minute calculation. An improvisation. I had to rely on my memory and emotional reflex.”
That would explain not only why he failed but also the ways in which he succeeded. For lack of an appropriately conceived destination, it only made sense that he had centered on something familiar.
His father held up a sheet of paper. It was messier than Five remembered, but he still recognized it.
“This calculation?” his father asked, even though it was obvious he already knew the answer to his question.
Five frowned, feeling a little perturbed. Clearly, his calculation had been passed around this week. And, by the look of Klaus’ visible doodles, it had not been treated with due respect.
Now his old man was holding onto it for unknown reasons.
It was dubious to say the least.
“It was unfinished, I told you,” Five said, more than a little sulky. He knew that he looked 14, but having to justify himself to his father was something he’d never been good at. “The situation became dire much faster than I anticipated. I was forced to improvise. The fate of the world was in the balance.”
As valid as the explanation was, his father was not impressed.
This was hardly surprising.
His father was never -- never -- impressed.
“So, you aren’t surprised, then,” his father said with an air of authority and possibly a hint of triumph. “With your failure.”
At this point, Five didn’t have the energy to rise to the bait. At 13, his old man could goad him into a lot of things, but Five was pushing 60 now. Plus, he’d been, more or less, in a coma for a week. This whole situation was shit.
And circuitous.
This wasn’t about Five’s failure.
No, this was about his father’s perception of Five’s failure.
If his father was a truly innocent bystander, he would have no judgment on this situation. He’d have no context by which to make his conclusion. Which meant that Reginald Hargreeves wasn’t an innocent bystander. He wasn’t inconsequential. He wasn’t a coincidence.
He knew.
About time travel.
About a lot more than time travel.
“That’s not really the question, though,” he said. He paused, tilting his head curiously. “No, the real question is why aren’t you surprised. Six strangers show in your foyer and you take it all in stride, like it’s no big deal. They start talking about time travel, and you still act like everything is perfectly normal.”
His father finally looked pleased for the first time in this whole conversation. “Ah, now you’re finally asking the good questions.”
He was toying with Five. Leading him to the right conclusion. The only conclusion. Five shook his head, still clearing the last of the cobwebs. “You know about this,” he said. “You know about all of this.”
His father feigned confusion with lackluster appeal. “All of what?”
It only made Five more adamant. “This,” he said, jabbing his finger at the paper in his father’s hands. “This,” he said, gesturing at it again with vigor. “Us.”
“You?”
Five did not back down. “You know who we are, don’t you?”
His father didn’t miss a beat. “You mean you’re not six wayfarers relying on my innate sense of humanity?”
That would be laughable, but Five was not amused. He didn’t have the time or the energy to be amused. “No, you know we’re siblings,” Five said, throwing all caution to the wind. Thoughts of entanglements, of muddying the timelines -- Five was too confident that he was right to worry about being wrong. That might come back to bite him in the ass, but he was all in for now. “You know we’re Hargreeves. That’s why you haven’t kicked us out, and only that.”
The fact that his father could muster up anything resembling insult was a testament to the fact that their old man was a better actor than he’d ever let on. “You doubt my generosity?”
“Yes,” Five said bluntly. Even if he had a penchant for artifice -- which, for the record, he did not -- he was far too tired to attempt it.
For some reason, that seemed to bemuse the old man. “You are the only one, then.”
Five scoffed, but he didn’t find that hard to believe. “The others are emotional and naive,” he said flatly. “And I think I’ve wasted enough time here, lying in this best. It’s better to put our cards on the table.”
He hesitated, deciding just how much he wanted to reveal.
Five really always had been an all-or-nothing type.
“You know about the apocalypse,” he blurted.
There was no surprise. There was no confusion. Instead, Reginald sat back in his chair and stroked his beard. “Ah,” he said. “So you are not playing the bluff.”
“Of course not,” Five said. “You know about the apocalypse in 2019, and you want to stop it.”
“Well,” his father said, shrugging one shoulder. “Is that so strange?”
“No,” Five said. “But it is strange how you go about it. The way you raised us, the ambiguity of what you did to us, your decision to kill yourself to bring us all back in time--”
“None of which are actions I have completed yet,” his father pointed out, though his lack of surprise was telling.
“But you’re doing it now, too,” he said. “Taking us in, playing along with the lies. Surely, there are better ways to accomplish our mutual goals.”
His father did not look remotely convinced. “Have you come asking for favors then?”
“I didn’t mean to come here at all,” Five snapped back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I told you, it was an accident.”
“Oh, but was it?” his father countered. “That you should end up here, in your father’s house?”
Five grit his teeth together, but could find no grounds to deny it. “Maybe I thought you’d help us.”
“And haven’t I?” his father returned.
“Not enough,” Five retorted. “Tell us what we need to know.”
“You are from a future I have not even lived yet,” Sir Reginald replied. “What could I possibly tell you that you don’t know?”
Five nodded his head at the paper in his father’s hands. “Finish the equation,” he said. “You know just as well as I do that it’s our ticket home. Our only ticket home. And if we can get back to 2019 safely and in one piece, we can make sure that the apocalypse is averted.”
His father raised his eyebrows, as if the notion was too much. “You put a lot of faith in one equation.”
“You’re the one reading it while I’m in a coma,” Five shot back, his confidence growing where hsi physical weakness still persisted. He’d been unconscious for a week, but this had been coming longer still. All of Five’s life, all the equations, and the answer was coming out the same. “All that you know? You can finish the equation. I know you can.”
His father looked at the paper, turning it over slowly and steadily in his hands. “I do have my own calculations regarding such matters, to be sure.”
“Then why didn’t you stop this?” Five asked, the confidence peaking into incredulity. It was one thing to accept that someone had more power than he did. It was another to reconcile why they failed to employ such power for a good cause. It was the reason he’d broken with the Handler, in the end. It would be the sticking point that would either reconcile Five to his father or separate them forever.
Because Five, at his core, was a pragmatic.
He was, however, also a humanist.
In short, he believed in people.
And he believed in protecting the greater good at all costs.
Anyone who threatened that -- be they friend or foe -- would never maintain Five’s loyalty.
Ever.
“I did,” his father replied shortly. “By your own account.”
That answer was annoying, to say the least.
It was also, unfortunately, not untrue.
The truth, Five knew from experience, could be quite annoying when you got right down to it.
He sighed, laying any remaining pretense aside. “Are you from the future then?” he asked. “Or are you just able to see it?”
“Ah, well,” his father said, reverting to coyness again. “Some things you really have to figure out the hard way. That does seem to be the way you learn.”
Five’s lip curled. “You really are a bastard.”
“Such can be said of heroes and villains alike,” his father mused from his chair.
Five frowned. “And you really don’t care which?”
At this, his father looked somewhat disappointed. “That’s quite a question coming from you,” he observed. “But really, as long as there’s an acceptable ending, perception is really very moot.”
“But the ending isn’t written yet,” Five implored him. He uncrossed his arms and gestured at the paper again. “You can change things. You can make a better ending.”
“So you truly believe, then,” his father said, “that you can stop this apocalypse?”
“Yes,” Five said. He exhaled heavily at the thought of it, and when he blinked, his eyes were burning. “I have to believe that I can help save the world. Just like I have to believe that I can save us. I mean, think about it. You can bring your family back together, make us a real family for once. You never managed that with all your success. You never managed it.”
His father shifted, for the first time looking uncomfortable. “That’s a vain suggestion,” he said, a little cold. “You could hardly make any judgement of me. You don’t know all the variables.”
Five’s brow darkened again. “What, then? You agree with the Commission? Just let the end come?”
Sir Reginald clicked his tongue and huffed. “Not in the least,” he said. “But just because they are horribly and tragically wrong does not mean you are by extension correct.”
Five sighed again, his energy flagging once again. He was hungry; he was exhausted. “Look, I’m just trying to do the best I can here.”
“Yes, yes,” his father said, seizing upon that point with some vigor. “And I’m trying my absolute best to let you do it.”
Slumping back, Five couldn’t maintain his composure any longer. “So you really won’t help me? You won’t solve the equation?”
“I have helped you,” his father said. He tilted his head critically. “I have sheltered you twice now, both times when you were incapable of helping yourself.”
“If you’re referring to my childhood, I beg to argue,” Five said. “My siblings are nearly nonfunctional thanks to you.”
“Nonsense,” Sir Reginald replied flatly. “I helped them too.”
Five snorted. “They’re a mess, thanks to you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Seven messes that somehow saved the world when it mattered most.”
Five reached up, rubbing his forehead. “So it’s back to the ends and means.”
“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” his father snapped. “You’re wallowing in self pity, and I can’t stomach it. Now that you’re well, you will want to get your siblings home as soon as possible, a task you cannot accomplish while lying in the bed like some invalid.”
Five dropped his hand, lifting his eyes wearily back to his father. “But I haven’t finished the equation, remember?”
“Haven’t you?” his father said, handing the paper back to him. He got to his feet, making his way to the door. “I expect you all to be gone by dinner or I’ll turn you out on the street before nightfall. Do not try my patience, Number Five.”
Dejectedly, Five looked at the paper, expecting to see his own failure written out plain and clear. Instead, he saw Luther’s notes. He saw Diego’s simple arthimetic. He saw Allison’s questions. He saw Klaus’ doodles. He saw Ben’s references. And he saw Vanya’s dried tears.
And there, in the middle of his equation, one blank is filled in.
Just one blank.
One missing variable
Defined.
Five stared at it, coming to terms with it. His mind reeled as the numbers fell into place, and suddenly the answer became painfully, blindingly obvious.
It was done.
One defined variable and all the other answers came crashing into place, like they’d been that way all along.
Gaping, he looked up. His father was still standing in the doorway, like he was waiting for Five.
“What did you do?” Five asked him, almost breathless.
“Nothing much,” his father commented dryly. “One simple variable.”
“That solved everything,” Five said. He let out a breath and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to solve this equation my whole life.”
“Indeed,” his father mused. “Well, then I think you’ve been searching long enough. It’s time to wake up, boy. Stop living in the past. Stop living in the future?”
Five wrinkled his brow, overcome by the emotion and unable to make it parse. “Then what’s left?”
His father inclined his head. “Right now,” he said, and he turned to leave again. “You have exactly three hours before my kindness has been worn out. Don’t try my patience with the deadline. Three hours!”
Five looked back down as his father’s footsteps dissipated down the hall. It was hilariously simple, really. It was amazing how easy it was not to see the most obvious things. In a matter of minutes, the mess had been put into order.
Maybe it was fate.
Maybe it was his father’s machinations.
Maybe it was a series of choices they had all made.
Maybe it was the past; maybe it was the future.
Five folded the paper in his hand and smiled.
Mostly, it was right now.
Number Eight: Sir Reginald
They left upon demand, and they left without much fanfare. It was unclear whether or not the child had told the others the truth, but it hardly seemed to matter. He’d already given them what they needed, each and every one.
You could call that sentiment, perhaps, but Sir Reginald was a practical man. He was a man with a singular focus. What he had given to them was simply what they needed to execute the plan.
That was what this was, what it had always been.
A plan.
To save the world.
The irony was, of course, that it was a world he would never see, and he hated to think, sometimes, about the trials he had to endure to get there. For it was not a desirable task, raising children, setting them against each other and bringing them together again. He would never tell them he loved them; he would never utter words that suggested he cared.
Yet, it was a task he would willingly endure. Because for all that he gave them their purpose, they would fulfill his. It was a satisfying complementarity, at least.
He’d never had need for justification. He had no moral quandaries. There were compromises and sacrifices, and he wondered if he’d still be this resolved when he collected them as babies, when he plucked them from their mothers arms and molded them into beings that could save the world at any cost.
The only thing he could give in exchange was the semblance of family.
He liked to think that he achieved it, in the end and in the beginning. For they stumbled into this house a week ago as seven separate entities. They had left tonight as a unit.
It felt like he’d finally finished the equation that had eluded him all his life.
Settling down, Sir Reginald ate his dinner alone at the grand table in the dining hall. He ate under the ornate ceilings, listening to records about mountain climbing while his soup cooled and he cut his steak into strips. The long table in front of him was empty, and he thought how he would have to turn out the sheets tomorrow, clean up the bathrooms.
He took a bite of food and chewed. He swallowed.
It was quite empty now. Quite still. Plenty of time to think. Plenty of space to exist.
He could hear his own heart, in fact, echoing against the cavernous inside of his chest.
Thump, thump, thump.
Yes, he was quite alone again.
At last, he told himself ruefully.
He reached for his wine and took a sip, smiling just a little as he put it down.
But not for long.