Umbrella Academy fic: Thicker Than Blood (5/13)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
-o-
Diego held his breath, waiting for impact. When it came, faster than Diego expected, the air was forced from his lungs by the sheer force of it. He was rocked forward, the jarring impact disorienting him. The forward momentum threw him against the seatbelt until it locked, but his had whipped forward, banging hard into the steering wheel so that his vision blinked out.
There was a roaring silence that echoed loudly in Diego’s ears, and it took him several long moments to realize that he was still alive. Another moment more before he remembered to take a breath.
He spluttered, blinking rapidly to clear the stars that danced in front of his eyes. It was only then, when his vision finally cleared, that he realized that Five was shaking him.
Belatedly, he realized that meant Five was alive.
Five was--
He groaned, trying to pop his ears, craning his sore neck to the side. “Five?”
Five looked paler than before, eyes unnaturally large as his fingers dug into Diego’s shoulder. “Are you okay? Are you able to move?”
The questions were demanded back to back, but they were breathless and tight. Fear, Diego thought. Five was afraid?
“Diego,” Five said again, louder this time, more insistent. “Are you okay?”
That was a question, wasn’t it? Diego’s mind flitted through a few existential answers before it occurred to him that Five was speaking quite practically. Given the fact that they were in a sinking car, that was probably for the best.
Shit, they were in a sinking car.
Diego’s senses came back to him enough to finally put those pieces together, and he could see the top of the car starting to bob below the surface. The water line outside was almost at eye level.
“Shit,” he said, swallowing hard and blinking a few more times. He reached down, fumbling with his seatbelt. “We got to get out of here.”
Five, who had clearly come to that conclusion before Diego, looked relieved. “Try your door.”
Diego looked over to his side. As he reached for the handle, he could see that was was already seeping in. It had filled the bottom, leaving his feet wet. “We’re going down.”
“And fast,” Five said. “Which is why you need to open your door. I tried mine, but the frame must have been bent in the crash. I can’t get it to budge.”
Fumbling now, Diego tried his door. He yanked hard at it, pushing with all his strength. The metal creaked, allowing more water to come in, but it wouldn’t open more than a crack. “Shit,” he said. “Mine’s jammed, too.”
Five didn’t look particularly surprised by the announcement, but he also didn’t look pleased. “Maybe we can try together,” he said. “Because if we don’t get out of here soon, we’re going to drown.”
That assessment sounded less than pleasant, and Diego rattled his door again. Five climbed up on the seat with a wince, stretching across Diego to kick at the door while Diego jimmied it. Going with that idea, Diego joined suit, sitting back in his seat to kick as hard as he could. Their joint strength was a good idea.
It just wasn’t good enough.
The door had opened a little more, but Diego could see the misshapen bend in the frame. The front had been crumpled like an accordian, and the frame had been badly buckled. There was no way for the door to open.
“Okay,” Five said, seemingly undaunted by this setback. “We’ll have to use a window.”
The water was pouring in faster now, the problem compounded by the fact that the increased water flow only made the car sink faster. The more water they took on, the faster they sunk. The faster they sank, the more water they took on. The car had disappeared beneath the surface now, suspended between the surface and the floor of the murky river.
Five growled his discontent. “Electricity must have shorted out,” he said.
“No, the circuits are bad,” Diego remembered. “Klaus stole the radio once. I never got around to fixing it.”
He hadn’t had the money; he hadn’t had the time. He hadn’t thought it was important, not with the air conditioning upgrade he’s installed a few years ago.
Five looked increasingly displeased, but he approached the setback with a perfunctory determination. “Then we’ll do this the old fashioned way,” he said. “I assume you’re still armed?”
“I don’t carry a gun,” Diego said.
“A knife will do,” Five said. “We just need something to crack the glass, enough to kick it out.”
The question on its surface was laughable. Like Diego was ever without a knife.
He had no ability to be flippant about it, though. The water was up to the seat in the back, and it had fully covered Diego’s feet as the car lurched down another foot or so.
Offering a knife to Five, he couldn’t help but shake his head. “It’s not going to work.”
Five didn’t quite acknowledge him. Instead, he took the knife and rammed it point first into the glass.
In response, the glass reverberated and the blade bed.
“Shit,” Five hissed.
Diego drew out another knife. “The glass is reinforced,” he said. “It’s bulletproof.”
Incredulously, Five took the next knife. “Why is it bulletproof?”
“Because the job!” Diego said, the pouring water was growing louder and he had to yell over it. “I have priorities!”
Five slammed the knife at the window again, frown deepening when the glass didn’t respond. “I think this counts as more evidence that your priorities are out of sorts!” he said, jamming the knife at the window again in a repeated motion.
The water was up to the seat now; Diego was sitting in it. The car was going vertical now, the filled rear end dragging down the entire frame faster and faster.
“Well, sorry!” Diego yelled back, taking out another knife to try for himself. “But I get shot at a lot more than I get dropped in the river!”
Breathing heavily, Five sat back. “We can debate the inanity of your priorities later,” he said, shaking his head while the water lapped at his stomach. “We’re going to need to look for a weak point in the glass, maybe at the edge. Anything we an exploit.”
Diego watched as Five tried jamming the knife in the crack at the window, trying to leverage enough force to make some kind of move. Five couldn’t possibly know just how much extra cash Diego had shelled out to make sure that the exterior of the car was completely impenetrable. He’d lived in a shithole and made his car a fortress.
Because priorities.
Shit.
The priority to save his own life was, ironically, going to kill him now.
Worse, it was going to kill Five.
Diego knew he wasn’t the one pulling the trigger or throwing the knife, but this was on him. This was still going to be on him.
He shook his head, throat feeling tight. “It’s not going to work,” he said, feeling a chill run up his spine as the water crested at his belly button and then just kept rising. “Five!”
Five didn’t spare him a look, turning his attention to a new point on the windshield.
“Five!” he said, and it was his turn to be insistent. “It’s not going to work!”
He reached out, grabbing his brother by the shoulder.
Five whirled back toward him, a little wild eyed. “It has to work,” he snapped. “Or we’re both going to die in this stupid car.”
“I will, maybe,” Diego said. He sighed. “But you don’t have to.”
Five, idiot that he was, looked like he genuinely had no idea what Diego was talking about.
Diego rolled his eyes. The car was eerily dark now with no light from the moon or the road above as they sank deeper still. “Jump, Five. You need to jump out of here.”
Five stopped and stared, his breathing almost suspended for a moment while the car tilted a little and water sloshed up toward his chest. “No,” he said, like the answer was obvious and non-negotiable. “Even if I wanted to, I’ve expended too much energy tonight. There’s no way I have enough energy left for a jump with you.”
Diego swallowed. Hard. “Five,” he said again, willing his brother to get it. Smart as he was -- and Five was the genius of the bunch -- he was still an idiot when it mattered. “You jump alone.”
The words seemed to hardly compute, as if Five couldn’t even conceptualize the reality of what Diego was suggesting. All his calculations, and Five wasn’t able to calculate for his own survival. “But even if I could muster up enough energy for a single jump, that’ll be it,” he said. “I’d never get back in.”
He said it like it was a self evident endgame. That that was it. Like together was the only option.
“But you can get out,” Diego said, watching as the water rose up to Five’s chest now. They were almost to the bottom of the river, the water outside darker than ever. “And who knows? Maybe the door will open from the outside. Maybe you can get me out.”
Five was trained and skilled, but he still had the lanky body of a 13 year old. There was no way he’d be able to force the door open, inside or out. But if it got Five out of the car, then Diego was willing to live with that lie.
Five shook his head, the logic seemingly falling short. “No,” he said. And he gestured to the windows again. “Do you have something else we can use? A crowbar?”
Before Diego could answer, Five was already back at the windows, slamming away with the knife as the water splashed around him. The sound was oddly muffled by the roar of the water as it pressed in all around them.
“Five, it’s not going to work. Five--”
He reached out, taking his brother by the shoulder again. Five looked enraged when he turned back. “If we don’t open a window, we’re going to die,” he seethed. “We need to get out.”
“We do,” Diego said. He nodded to the water outside. “So do it! Go!”
Five drew a breath, shaking his head stoutly. “No, if we work together, pry at the same time, we--”
“Five!”
Five lunged at him, lifting the knife to Diego’s throat in a trained, menacing motion. “Do it!” he growled. “Do it or I kill you!”
The threat, however convincing, was empty. “You can’t threatened to kill me while trying to save my life, dumbass,” he said. “No one will blame you for jumping. I don’t blame you.”
Five stared at him as the water rushed in faster, at his neck now. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“There’s no point in both of us dying,” Diego reasoned.
“Exactly,” Five said. He withdrew the knife, gesturing to the window again. “So help me!”
Five’s determination, his utter belief -- well, it was tempting. Five had a flare for dramatics when you got down to it, and he wasn’t a leader like Luther but he knew how to rally people to a cause when he had to. He seemed to hate doing it, but that had never stopped him before. And really, if Five could stop the apocalypse, then maybe he wasn’t crazy. Maybe he could do it.
But as Diego lifted his own knife to help, he realized that they had stopped sinking. They were at the bottom now, and the water was up to his chest. For Five, it was lapping at his chin. His brother didn’t seem to even notice. He probably wouldn’t notice, not until he was dead.
Diego stifled a curse. All that he wanted to protect people and here he was, leading his brother to a watery grave. “Five, you have to stop,” he said, pulling Five’s hand back. “You have to jump before it’s too late!”
Five shook his head. “No, I told you, we go together or not at all,” he said. “You’re the one who said it, that I left. I left and outlived you all once. Every day that I survived in the apocalypse, I promised myself that, if I had a chance to do it again, I would choose differently. I would put the family first. No matter how stupid, how reckless, how infuriating -- family, Diego. So you can sit there and do nothing or you can help me get the hell out of this mess.”
The thing about Five was that he didn’t lie. It wasn’t that he had some kind of moral objection -- at least not as far as Diego could see -- but it was more that it wasn’t worth his time. Sure, Five would withhold the truth when he deemed it convenient, but lying almost seemed to take too much emotional capacity. If he were uncomfortable, he’d blink his way out. If he was angry, he’s bash in a few heads. For all the brains he had in that head, he’d never realized that the easy way out was the one you made up on the spot.
Five told the truth because the truth was the only thing worth telling, and the plainness of that was what made him so compelling. When he took the time to tell you something, you knew it was something worth listening to.
Diego’s gut twisted; his chest ached. The pressure outside the car was reaching a breaking point, and the water was too high. Five could talk all he wanted about family, and all Diego could hear was that Five needed Diego to save his life. Diego was bad with family, that much was true, but saving lives? Diego was good with that shit.
Really damn good.
Gritting his teeth, he took his knife and sat forward. “Weakest spot is going to be in the middle,” he said, jamming his knife at the line where the windshield ended and the car began. “If we can break the seal, we might have a chance.”
Five didn’t need to be told again.
With unrelenting vigor, Five moved forward, directing his full strength at the window, exactly where Diego indicated. Following him, Diego added his own strength, and under their combined effort, Diego felt something shift.
It was a small movement, but Diego imagined it to be significant. One crack in the seal; one crack in the foundation. That was all it took.
As they worked, the water continued to rise. It was up to Diego’s neck now, and Five had to push himself into a standing position to keep his head above the water. Working in tandem again, Diego’s knife slid under the rim of the windshield. He leveraged himself as best he could, Five straining next to him. Then, with an unexpected rush, there was a loud crack.
For a second, Diego thought they had done it, they had opened the windshield.
Five fell back, however, badly off balance. His knife had snapped off at the hilt as he splashed back against the rising water.
“Shit!” Five said. He was soaked now, head to toe. “Do you have another one?”
Diego spat water out of his mouth and realized that the water would be above his head now if he were still strapped in. They were both floating, heads pressed up to the air pocket that still remained within the top few inches of the car’s ceiling. “Doesn’t matter!” he yelled back, craning his neck to take a good breath. “We’re out of time! You have to jump now, Five. You have to!”
Five drew in a ragged, gasping breath. His exhaustion was starting to show again, more pronounced than before. It was strange, really. How someone could look so old and so young all at once. The look on his face was nothing short of tortured, and Diego watched as his expression screwed up with concentration.
For a moment, Diego thought Five would do it, that he would jump out to save his life. It would mean certain death for Diego, but that was the risk of this job. Diego had accepted that risk; he’d embraced it. He could do this, this one last job, and he could do it with satisfaction knowing that Five survived.
But, to Diego’s shock, Five blew out the breath and shook his head. “We still have time!”
Diego spluttered a protest, but before he could stop his brother, Five had already gathered one last mighty breath and descended below the water again. “Five -- what--”
The question didn’t matter. Five wasn’t able to hear him, and even if he was, Five was well past listening. With no weapon in hand, Five was using all his body weight to push at the glass with his feet, and Diego dove after him for the want of something better to do.
The job, after all.
He had to do the job.
Positioning himself next to Five, he braced his back against the seat, placing his feet on the windshield. He used his greater strength to gain additional leverage, but it was hard to see if they were making any progress. The water had nearly filled the car now, and the muffled sounds were strangely disconnect from reality.
They were dying; they were drowning. How long would it be before someone dragged their bodies from beneath the water? Would the family honor them the way the old man would have? Would there be statues or paintings? A simple service in the courtyard with ashes dumped in the rain?
The job never required success, merely action. Diego had trained as hard as he could, but that was never a guarantee. He’d thought he’d been ready, but maybe he was wrong.
He looked at Five, still straining against the inevitable.
Maybe he was wrong about a lot of things.
Diego thought about that, about his family. He thought about Luther and his security system. He thought about Allison getting custody of Claire. He thought about Klaus at AA meetings. He thought about Ben, learning to manifest himself in new ways. He thought of Vanya and how happy she looked now, like she had never looked before.
And Five--
Next to him, Five faltered. He blinked a few times more than before as his strength noticeably started to wane. The tension started to drain from his body, and Diego turned toward him, grabbing him by the shoulders.
He attempted to force Five to the air pocket only to find there wasn’t enough left to breathe. Frantic, he shook his brother, trying to draw the smaller brother’s attention to him. Five blinked lazily in his direction while Diego screamed into the stillness.
“Jump! You have to jump!”
It was an empty roar, however, bubbles against the expanse. Five’s eyes unfocused completely as he blinked again. His body was entirely limp now, his head tipping forward and back as Diego tried to shake some sense back into him. It was no good, however. Five’s eyes rolled back, and Diego could see the whites of his eyes before the lids closed at didn’t open again. More bubbles were released, this time as Five exhaled heavily one last time. His small frame was pliant in Diego’s grip, and the fight was over.
No, the fight wasn’t just over.
Diego had to call it like it was.
The fight was lost.
His own chest was burning now, the pressure from the lack of oxygen seeming to mount. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t breathe. The pressure in his chest was matched by a throbbing in his head. Five was drowning right in front of him, and what good was Diego? What about the job now?
The frustration mounted, and Diego howled against the water. It threatened to choke him, cloying in his mouth and nose as he shook his brother again. Five showed no response this time, his dark hair wafting listlessly in Diego’s waves.
The frustration reached its breaking point, and Diego was struck by the inevitability of it all. All he could do now was wait. For all his kicking, all his moaning, all his restlessness, he was reduced to this. To wasting time, just like his siblings. Only while the others explore their passions and find themselves, Diego was busy dying.
He clamped his mouth shut against the inevitability of it all. He wasn’t ready to die; he wasn’t ready to let go. The pressure to do something, the pressure to be someone, the pressure to show his family what mattered -- it burned in his chest, more virulent than ever before. Would they see it now? Would they understand?
Diego looked at Five and closed his eyes.
Did Diego understand? The cost of action? The reality of putting the job first and letting family come second? Did it matter that they had saved that family? Did it matter that they had saved that street? Was he going to be judged by the culmination of his actions? Or did the only choice that mattered the last one he made?
Was it just about him?
Or was it about the people he left behind?
The people who went before?
Shit, he needed to breathe. He needed to breathe. He was dying for want of oxygen. He was dying.
His mind flitted from one thing to the next. He thought about the man in the weapons cache and the way he’d smiled. He thought about the six digit code he never should have been able to guess. He thought about the way he’d said so quickly that he didn’t need to tell the others.
He looked at Five, and thought about the equations scrawled across his walls. He thought about Vanya playing her violin and Ben in the library. Klaus was knitted a scarf no one would wear, and Allison was on the phone with Claire.
And Luther was there, too. Large and looming right outside the window.
Diego blinked, confused.
His shell shocked mind struggled to comprehend, and for a long moment, he thought that this was the throes of oxygen desperation finally kicking in. How long had it been? It felt like hours, but it had to have been seconds. He would be dying now, wouldn’t he?
But, to his confusion, Luther moved outside the door, mouthing something frantic at Diego. His muddled brain had no way to comprehend it, and it didn’t seem to matter. With a look of concentration, Luther braced himself. Within seconds, he had wrenched the door. First, the metal cracked before Luther’s brute strength was able to rip the damaged panel clean off its hinges.
Dumbstruck, Diego watched as the door floated to the ground before he realized that Luther was reaching for him. The hand, still covered in a fingerless glove, was outstretched. A hallucination, then. Maybe this was the invitation to the afterlife. That was a hell of a way to go, Diego thought wryly. With the brother he couldn’t stand in life.
What else was he going to do? It was all family, in the end, then. It was all family.
Diego reached out and took Luther’s hand.
To his surprise, it was surprisingly solid.
Almost like Luther was really there.
Almost like Diego wasn’t dead.
The suddenness of that realization was overwhelming.
Holy shit.
He wasn’t dead?
How the hell wasn’t he dead?
There was probably a better time and place for that. Like, when he wasn’t still underwater. Still, the burning in his chest notwithstanding, he twisted himself to the side, pulling his hand back. As he moved, he rotated Five around and thrusting the still figure toward Number One.
Luther didn’t need it explained to him. He took Five securely before reaching back for Diego.
This time, when Diego saw the outstretched hand, he resisted it. Diego, out of impulse, swatted his hand away with a glower.
Luther offered it again.
Diego responded to the gesture, presumably of goodwill, by shoving Luther’s oversized ass forward. Five had already stopped breathing; there was no time for Luther to waste.
With implicit understanding, Luther pulled away, Five close to his chest as he kicked toward the surface. Diego followed, his extremities numb as he drew himself out of the car and followed in Luther’s wake. Alive, though he was, Diego found the whole thing disorienting. He ascended in confusion, trying to piece together everything that had happened.
The man at the house.
The bomb with the passcode.
The conversation about telling the others in the car.
The accident that sent them underwater.
Five’s determination to fight it out by Diego’s side.
The way Five’s life had drained out of him, leaving Diego to die alone.
This had to be what it was like, a near-death experience. He had heard people talk about it; he had heard Klaus talk about it. How had he described it? Eternity in a second? Your whole life flashing before your eyes?
That was the only explanation.
For why Diego was still breathing and Five was not.
Panic clenched in his stomach, and Diego kicked faster, coming up alongside Luther as they neared the surface. The reflection of the moon was across the water when they broke the surface, and Luther spluttered loudly, taking gulping breaths from his rescue attempt.
Diego tried to remember to force air into his lungs when he was struck by the fact that Five hadn’t made any effort at all. In fact, his head was still dipped forward, bobbing toward the water as Luther held him afloat.
“Come on!” Diego yelled, starting toward the shore. “We need to get him out of the water!”
There was no time for a power struggle, not now. Diego wasn’t trying to show his dominance any more than Luther was trying to defend his. This was how it was in the heat of the moment. They could fight -- they would fight -- about trivial things. But when it counted? Then, they both knew the value of family.
They knew that it was worth fighting for. Worth dying for.
Diego hit the land, staggering to his feet, turning back to help Luther bring Five up out of the murky water.
It had be worth living for, too.
Didn’t it?
Luther lowered Five, but Diego guided his head, protecting it so it wouldn’t hit the ground hard. The road above was quiet; the night was still. Diego wondered where the man was and if the families were back in their houses yet, secure and safe, a job well done.
Leaning over Five, Luther muttered a curse. “He’s not breathing.”
Diego was drawn back to the moment, and he came around to the other side of Five. Luther was crouched low, his head over Five’s mouth. Without asking, Diego nudged him out of the way, pressing his fingers to the pulse point on Five’s neck. He waited for the familiar thump, but nothing happened. He adjusted his fingers, and across from him Luther shook his head.
“He hasn’t got a pulse,” Luther announced, sounding surprisingly collected. He had always been cool under pressure. Diego never gave him credit for that, never liked to talk about how that was one of the reasons that Dad probably saw him as the ideal Number One. Without waiting for a response from Diego, Luther squared his shoulders. “Starting CPR.”
It was surreal, really. All those years of training, and Diego hadn’t much attention to the safety courses. The courses about how to treat wounds and save lives -- what had been the point? If you did the job right, none of that mattered. Sure, Diego was prepared. He knew first aid; he knew CPR. But he had never had to use them.
He wasn’t supposed to use them.
Luther had lined up his hands over Five’s chest, and Diego remembered that this wasn’t just a job. This was family.
“Stop,” Diego said, getting himself into position instead.
“Diego, we need to start his heart--”
“And if you do CPR, you’re just going to crush his ribcage,” Diego said sharply. “You do the rescue breathing. I’ve got compressions.”
Luther, fully in the moment, did not object. As Diego started compressions -- right over the center of the chest, rapid, deep compressions -- Luther scooted himself up to Five’s head. It seemed that all that training from Dad had paid off. The Umbrella Academy, though not active by choice, could still be summoned by necessity. Diego paused and Luther knew his part, pinching off Five’s nose and blowing in two quick breaths.
It was training; it was rote. Diego could do it without thinking, without thinking about how this was Five. How it was Five who wasn’t breathing, Five whose chest was bending beneath his pressure, Five who was dead. Because that was what this was, when you got down to it. Five had come along to help on the job, and now he was dead. Diego had traded the job for family with no reservations and here was the result.
Small, pale and still on the banks of the river.
Pausing, Luther breathed for Five again, and Diego could feel his chest rise up beneath his hands. Without hesitating, he started up again, trying to calculate how long the human brain could go without oxygen. Five would be able to make those calculations.
If he wasn’t dead, anyway.
He had to wonder if Five had seen this in his probability maps? Had he known what he was risking? Would he still call it worthwhile?
Family was his priority.
Five was a prick and an asshole, but family was always his priority.
What did that say about Diego?
He stopped long enough for Luther to deliver two more breaths before he started again.
You had to move fast to do this job. You couldn’t think about the consequences. You couldn’t think about the significance. That wasn’t how you saved lives.
He paused again and Luther blew in two more breaths.
Diego resumed compressions, but now he could feel his arms aching. He could feel the toll as it accumulated. He could feel the weight he tried to pretend didn’t matter. He could hear the man in the basement, telling Diego that he knew more about him than Diego knew about himself. He could hear Five telling him about how losing his family was the worst mistake he’d ever made and how he’d sacrificed everything to get them back.
Everything.
His compressions faltered, but Luther didn’t notice. At the pause, he breathed again, and Diego had no choice but to continue on.
That was it, then. Diego had no choice. He had never had a choice. No one asked him if he wanted to be a part of this family. No one asked him if he was happy being Number Two. No one asked if he wanted to stay. No one asked if he was happy the way things were. No one asked him if he wanted to be knocked into the river. And no one certainly asked if he wanted to watch his brother die in his arms.
No one asked. That was how it was with family. Family was assumption. Family was obligation. Family was a setup for failure.
“Diego, come on!” Luther yelled at him. “You can’t stop! You can’t!”
Saving lives; family. Sometimes they were the same thing.
Sometimes they were the only thing.
Diego pressed harder, faster. That was what he did. He rose to the challenge. He succeeded. Always.
The air was like fire in his lungs and tears burned his eyes.
Always.
Without warning, Five’s body convulsed beneath his touch, and Diego stopped short of his next compression in shock. Reeling, he fell back on his heels while Luther frantically scrambled to roll Five on his side as he coughed up river water.
Sometimes things worked.
Even when they shouldn’t.
Diego wasn’t about to start questioning small miracles on a night like tonight.
Five gurgles, spewing more water as he gasped wetly for air. Luther coaxed him along, supporting his head while he heaved for much needed oxygen.
The pressure in Diego’s own chest hadn’t abated, not even a little.
Shit, there wasn’t time to question that stuff right now. There was no time to question six digit codes and CPR success rates after a drowning.
Not when he had so many other things to question first.
-o-
Diego wasn’t about to admit it, but it was pretty nice that Luther was in control of this much. Diego was strained and exhausted, the events of the night finally catching up with him. For the time being, he was more than okay with being Number Two. He sat back, struggling to catch his own breath, while Five’s desperate breathing started to even out.
“It’s okay,” Luther said gently, still holding him up. “You’re okay.”
Weakly, Five tried to push himself up. When his arms threatened to fail him, Luther propped him up, leaning him against his chest. Five collapsed against Luther’s hold, pale face turned up to the sky as he gasped for air.
“Just take it easy,” Luther coached. “We’ve got you.”
Five inhaled again, wincing at the effort. He blinked a few times. “Diego?” he croaked. “Is Diego--?”
Diego stared at him numbly, too dumbfounded to realize what Five was asking.
Luther was quick on the uptake, though. “Diego’s fine. He’s right here,” he said, and he looked at Diego, eyes imploring. “Diego’s here.”
The belated realization was the Five was worried about him.
Five had drowned, staying to the end to help Diego, and the first thought he had was whether or not Diego was okay.
Shit, there were heroes.
And then there was family.
He sat forward, remembering to move. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say. “I’m fine. We’re both fine.”
That was some version of the truth, at least. Limited in its interpretation.
Five, dazed as he was, didn’t seem to question it.
Luther, still propping Five up, was another story. Though he kept a firm grip on Five, he lifted his eyes to Diego. He gave Diego a cursory once over before locking his eyes on Diego’s face.
Cheeks burning, Diego found himself looking away. He watched the rise and fall of Five’s chest instead. In and out, in and out.
It wasn’t much of a reprieve.
“What happened?”
That wasn’t a question as much as it was a massive understatement. How the hell was Diego supposed to answer that? Did he even know?
He shook his head, at a loss. The breathless laugh that escape his lips was the only thing that made sense. “I don’t even know.”
Luther did not look to be in the mood for shit. He shook his head. “I know you were working a job, Diego. I know Five went with you. He said it was weird, that it got personal, at the old trianing house.”
“Wait,” Diego said. He looked at Five, who had closed his eyes again while he focused on his breathing. “Five told you? When?”
“He called me for backup,” Luther said, as though that answer was obvious. “He said where you were and that there was a bomb.”
“We disarmed the bomb,” Diego told him.
“I figured that when I got to the street and found it blocked off with cops,” he said.
That made sense. But a lot of it didn’t make sense. Diego wrinkled his nose. “But how’d you find us then?”
“Five’s cell phone. He had it on,” Luther said. “It was his idea. He told me to track it in case things went south.”
In case maniacs used their birthday as a passcode and they got run off the road and nearly drowned in the river. Maybe there was something to be said for contingencies.
Still, Diego couldn’t believe that Five had gone behind his back. He’d trusted Five. “The bastard,” he muttered, wearily closing his own eyes. “He said he wouldn’t tell.”
“Well, you’re lucky he did,” Luther said. “He saved your life.”
Luther had a point there. Diego opened his eyes again, looking at the small form of their oldest sibling. It was possible Five had a point, too, though Diego wasn’t quite ready to admit it.
Still, Luther did just drag them out of the water. Stiffly, Diego bobbed his head to acknowledge that much. “Well, it’s good timing on your part,” he said. “I must have been seconds from passing out. Much longer and you would have been reviving both of us.”
Luther gave him a funny look at that, as if something had just occurred to him. “The car must have filled up slowly, then.”
Diego made a face. “What?”
“Diego, it took me 10 minutes to get to the house and another five to realize that you and Five weren’t there,” Luther explained. “Another five in transit, and then it took me a good five minutes to trace your car off the edge of the road. I found it pretty quickly when I dove in, but I don’t know. At least 30 minutes passed from the time Five called me to the time I pulled you out.”
Diego listened, trying to do the math. He was good on his feet, but the classroom skills had never been his forte. No, that wasn’t it. He had just rarely seen the value. Sure, he could calculate trajectories in his head, but long division wasn’t exactly a necessary skill in the field. Much less the theoretical crap Five wasted all his time on.
Still, the math on this was hard to parse. How long did it take them to get in the car? How long did they drive? How fast did they sink? It had felt like a lifetime, sure, but Diego was still breathing by the end. It had to be less than that.
He shook his head. “You must have lost track of it.”
Luther looked downright incredulous. “I always clock the missions. You know how Dad was about that,” he said. He pointed at his watch to prove his point. A timer was going. It clocked in at 41 minutes and counting. “You were underwater for a long time.”
Diego scoffed, ready to refute the comments on principle alone. Luther had to be wrong, of course. Luther was often wrong, big oaf that he was. He could hit hard and follow orders, but that didn’t make him a mastermind. “There’s no way.”
“Obviously, there is,” Luther said. He nodded to Five, who was still gaping like a fish with his eyes closed. “Five drowned, didn’t he?”
Five did drown. That was true. Diego had watched it happen.
“And you,” Luther said, gesturing his his free hand toward Diego. “You weren’t even out of breath. So what gives?”
Diego couldn’t muster the scoff this time. The thought of what had happened spun through his head as he tried to put it together and make the pieces parse. They’d gone off the road, the car had started to sink. He had told Five to get out; Five had refused. They had worked until Five had passed out and then Diego had given up and waited for the inevitable.
It had felt like a lifetime.
But it had only been seconds.
Hadn’t it?
“My sense of time must be off,” Diego said. “It must have taken a long time for the car to go down. Five had just drowned when you came. That’s all.”
He said it with as much confidence as he could muster.
It wasn’t enough.
“Doesn’t any of this seem strange to you?” Luther asked.
“The whole thing is strange,” Diego said. “The Umbrella Academy is strange.”
“I’m serious, Diego,” he said. “The water when I got here was still. There were no bubbles. And you had the presence of mind to make me take Five first. You weren’t in any rush. You weren’t drowning, Diego.”
“I’m bigger,” he said. “More lung capacity.”
“Diego--”
“What?” Diego snapped back. “Five drowned; I didn’t. What of it?”
The second he asked his question, his mind supplied the answer. Just like he knew the six digit code, he knew why he hadn’t drowned. He knew why he wasn’t out of breath. He knew why, for all that he wanted to take a gulping breaths of air, it never made any difference.
The thing he didn’t know, apparently, was himself anymore.
Luther drew a breath, calm and diplomatic, as only Luther could be in the face of outright aggression. “Diego, I just am trying to figure this out--”
Diego lifted his eyes. The eye contact was enough to stop Luther’s speech mid-sentence, and the coldness of the revelation made Diego shudder. “Maybe it was longer,” he said, his voice trailing off a little. Maybe his life hadn’t flashed before his eyes. Maybe just his future. Maybe that was enough.
Luther wet his lips. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Diego said, the words falling from his tongue like his numb fingers punching in the keys to a passcode he had no right to guess. “That I think I have another power.”
It was outrageous to say, outrageous to think, except in all the ways that it wasn’t. They were all exceptional people, and they were all still mastering their specific talents. Klaus had repressed the hell out of his abilities, and now he was constantly discovering new things he could do. Five, for all his years of practice, was still hit or miss when it came to his power. As for Luther and Allison, it was hard to say the extent of their powers, but just look at Vanya. Vanya had only come into her own as an adult.
So why not? Why wouldn’t Diego have another power?
Hadn’t he always wanted that? Hadn’t he dreamed of it? Hadn’t he wanted something to give him a leg up, to put him ahead of the others? To make him better than Luther?
Luther, sitting across from him, blinked wide eyes. “You have another power?”
Despite the surge of certainty, his voice shook when he spoke. “Apparently.”
Luther’s face screwed up. “It’s, what, though? You can hold your breath?”
“How else do you explain it?” Diego asked. He pointed to the river. “I was underwater for at least ten minutes. I should have drowned well before the time you got down there, and when I got to the surface, I wasn’t even winded. I mean, stranger shit has happened to us, hasn’t it?”
Clearly skeptical, Luther chewed his bottom lip. “But usually they’re related powers,” he said. “I mean, Five can travel through time and space. Klaus can communicate with the dead and channel spirits to do things, including levitation or whatever. But bending objects? How does that connect to holding your breath?”
“It’s all air, right?” Diego said. “So maybe there’s more than one way to control it.”
Luther still didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t need to be convinced. Sighing a little, he looked back down at Five. “You’re right: weirder things have happened,” he said. He looked back up at Diego, a smile playing lightly on his lips. “I’m not sure how it’ll come in handy, but it’s definitely good to know for future reference.”
Luther’s endorsement should have made him feel better, but Diego looked at Five, too. Diego hadn’t known about his ability, he had had no idea that he would survive. But here he was, fine and dandy. It made Five’s sacrifice for him pointless. Five had died for nothing.
Five wouldn’t think that way, though. Five would insist that he made the only choice he could make, that it wasn’t a choice at all. And it wasn’t, not for Five. Five put the family first, above all things. That wasn’t a cute thing to say or a convenient scapegoat. It was real; it was tangible.
Like the air in his lungs right now.
He shook his head wearily, rubbing his hand over his eyes. Five knew his priorities. So did Luther. The big jackass had showed up, no questions asked, the second Five had called. And Diego could give his brother shit, but Luther had found them on his own. He had done that and not even offered a word of criticism despite the obvious fact that Diego’s little side job had nearly gotten Five killed.
Family.
What the hell was it about family?
“We should get him back,” Diego said, nodding at Five again.
Luther gathered him up a little closer. “We should get both of you back.”
As Luther scooped Five up, Diego followed him up the bank and to the side of the road where one of Dad’s cars was parked. He found, for once, that he had no heart to disagree.
-o-
Luther drove, and Diego took Five in the back. It was a large car -- Dad had always preferred older things, things that endured -- and the roomy interior gave Diego plenty of room to keep Five comfortable.
Comfortable was a relative distinction, of course. Five didn’t look particularly comfortable. Although his breathing continued to grow even, it still sounded strained. The exhaustion -- from drowning or the exertion of transporting people earlier -- and left him spent, and though Diego suspected he was conscious on and off, Five kept his eyes closed throughout the journey. They would have Mom look him over when they got back. Check for broken ribs, pneumonia, things like that.
Of course, it would be inevitable that the rest of the family would find out. Diego would have to explain what happened. He would have to explain the job, at the very least. It was likely that someone would figure out that his erratic appearances around the mansion weren’t a coincidence. Hell, Five would probably outright tell them that he was playing vigilante on his own again.
And there would be questions, then. About this job. Why had it been at one of the houses? Who had been the bad guy in the basement?
Those were the details he couldn’t avoid, the ones that Five would corroborate with or without Diego.
But the rest.
The things Five didn’t know.
Diego looked out the window, his chest feeling tight.
Should he tell them about the man in the basement? Did he have to explain the link to the mall attack? Should he talk about how many weapons were taken? Was it necessary to disclose everything the man had said? About Diego, about family?
And should he tell them about the passcode?
Should he tell them about the doubts that he had? The desire he had to leave? That his priorities weren’t their priorities?
He looked at the back of Luther’s head in the driver’s seat. Then he looked at Five’s face, still grimaced in some approximation of sleep.
The job was his priority. He was willing to die for the job. That was what made him a hero.
But Five was willing to die for family. It wasn’t clear if that made him a hero, but Diego had to wonder if it made him a better person.
Who did he want to be, then? The guy who talked down killers? The one who guessed passcodes? The idiot who snuck out on his family and plotted his moment to leave?
Or was maybe it not such a bad thing to be the one who stayed. He’d hated Luther for it, thought he was dumb, but the others had all come back. They were all staying now. Diego had thought they didn’t get it, but what if it was him? What if he was looking for something that he couldn’t find on a police scanner?
The car thumped over the road, and Diego did his best to steady Five from the worst of the impacts. It was, to be fair, the absolute least he could do.
He closed his eyes again, resting his head against the window. He listened to Five breathe, the quiet rasps, in and out, in and out.
They were pulling into the garage when Diego realized he had been holding his breath the whole time.
-o-
It was late.
No, it was early.
Whatever it was, no one else was awake yet. This was of some convenience, of course. There were fewer questions that way, though to think of it as a relief would be naive. The questions were coming; they were inevitable.
This way, Diego might have time to think up an answer.
Probably not, but whatever. He could try some wishful thinking for a change.
As it was, he was content to keep Luther on point, following along as Luther roused Five and helped him into the house. He started up toward Five’s bedroom, ordering Diego to get Mom.
“It’s not an emergency, but make sure she’s ready,” Luther said, already partway up the first flight of stairs. “I want him checked out now.”
Given that this was technically Diego’s fault, he wasn’t in a position to argue. Still, as he climbed the stairs and turned toward the landing where Mom charged, he had his hesitations. Because there she was, perfect and pristine. Face upturned toward the paintings, she looked serene. Not even the cord from the side of her neck could change that.
Mom was what had defined family for him. At least, she had defined the only good parts. She was love. She was all he knew of love.
But family was more than that, no matter how much Diego hated it. Family was staying. Family was telling the truth. Family was staying sober. Family was a smile and dinner together. Family was coming along, even when you didn’t agree.
Family was more than Diego thought.
More complicated, more aggravating.
More meaningful, more powerful.
Walking away from her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
His chest still hurt.
He took a breath.
It didn’t help.
Sighing, he went over to her, sitting down gently next to her. Carefully, he brushed her hair out of the way and disconnected the cord. She whirred with a flash of blue before her eyes fluttered open. It took only a few seconds for her processor to come back online, and she looked at Diego and smiled. “Why, Diego, dear, you’re up late. Is everything okay?”
The question hurt. Diego blinked hard, choking on a laugh. “No,” he said. “Nothing’s okay at all.”
Mom’s face registered modest concern, and she got to her feet, adjusting her dress primly. “Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s fix it. What seems to be the problem?”
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
-o-
Diego held his breath, waiting for impact. When it came, faster than Diego expected, the air was forced from his lungs by the sheer force of it. He was rocked forward, the jarring impact disorienting him. The forward momentum threw him against the seatbelt until it locked, but his had whipped forward, banging hard into the steering wheel so that his vision blinked out.
There was a roaring silence that echoed loudly in Diego’s ears, and it took him several long moments to realize that he was still alive. Another moment more before he remembered to take a breath.
He spluttered, blinking rapidly to clear the stars that danced in front of his eyes. It was only then, when his vision finally cleared, that he realized that Five was shaking him.
Belatedly, he realized that meant Five was alive.
Five was--
He groaned, trying to pop his ears, craning his sore neck to the side. “Five?”
Five looked paler than before, eyes unnaturally large as his fingers dug into Diego’s shoulder. “Are you okay? Are you able to move?”
The questions were demanded back to back, but they were breathless and tight. Fear, Diego thought. Five was afraid?
“Diego,” Five said again, louder this time, more insistent. “Are you okay?”
That was a question, wasn’t it? Diego’s mind flitted through a few existential answers before it occurred to him that Five was speaking quite practically. Given the fact that they were in a sinking car, that was probably for the best.
Shit, they were in a sinking car.
Diego’s senses came back to him enough to finally put those pieces together, and he could see the top of the car starting to bob below the surface. The water line outside was almost at eye level.
“Shit,” he said, swallowing hard and blinking a few more times. He reached down, fumbling with his seatbelt. “We got to get out of here.”
Five, who had clearly come to that conclusion before Diego, looked relieved. “Try your door.”
Diego looked over to his side. As he reached for the handle, he could see that was was already seeping in. It had filled the bottom, leaving his feet wet. “We’re going down.”
“And fast,” Five said. “Which is why you need to open your door. I tried mine, but the frame must have been bent in the crash. I can’t get it to budge.”
Fumbling now, Diego tried his door. He yanked hard at it, pushing with all his strength. The metal creaked, allowing more water to come in, but it wouldn’t open more than a crack. “Shit,” he said. “Mine’s jammed, too.”
Five didn’t look particularly surprised by the announcement, but he also didn’t look pleased. “Maybe we can try together,” he said. “Because if we don’t get out of here soon, we’re going to drown.”
That assessment sounded less than pleasant, and Diego rattled his door again. Five climbed up on the seat with a wince, stretching across Diego to kick at the door while Diego jimmied it. Going with that idea, Diego joined suit, sitting back in his seat to kick as hard as he could. Their joint strength was a good idea.
It just wasn’t good enough.
The door had opened a little more, but Diego could see the misshapen bend in the frame. The front had been crumpled like an accordian, and the frame had been badly buckled. There was no way for the door to open.
“Okay,” Five said, seemingly undaunted by this setback. “We’ll have to use a window.”
The water was pouring in faster now, the problem compounded by the fact that the increased water flow only made the car sink faster. The more water they took on, the faster they sunk. The faster they sank, the more water they took on. The car had disappeared beneath the surface now, suspended between the surface and the floor of the murky river.
Five growled his discontent. “Electricity must have shorted out,” he said.
“No, the circuits are bad,” Diego remembered. “Klaus stole the radio once. I never got around to fixing it.”
He hadn’t had the money; he hadn’t had the time. He hadn’t thought it was important, not with the air conditioning upgrade he’s installed a few years ago.
Five looked increasingly displeased, but he approached the setback with a perfunctory determination. “Then we’ll do this the old fashioned way,” he said. “I assume you’re still armed?”
“I don’t carry a gun,” Diego said.
“A knife will do,” Five said. “We just need something to crack the glass, enough to kick it out.”
The question on its surface was laughable. Like Diego was ever without a knife.
He had no ability to be flippant about it, though. The water was up to the seat in the back, and it had fully covered Diego’s feet as the car lurched down another foot or so.
Offering a knife to Five, he couldn’t help but shake his head. “It’s not going to work.”
Five didn’t quite acknowledge him. Instead, he took the knife and rammed it point first into the glass.
In response, the glass reverberated and the blade bed.
“Shit,” Five hissed.
Diego drew out another knife. “The glass is reinforced,” he said. “It’s bulletproof.”
Incredulously, Five took the next knife. “Why is it bulletproof?”
“Because the job!” Diego said, the pouring water was growing louder and he had to yell over it. “I have priorities!”
Five slammed the knife at the window again, frown deepening when the glass didn’t respond. “I think this counts as more evidence that your priorities are out of sorts!” he said, jamming the knife at the window again in a repeated motion.
The water was up to the seat now; Diego was sitting in it. The car was going vertical now, the filled rear end dragging down the entire frame faster and faster.
“Well, sorry!” Diego yelled back, taking out another knife to try for himself. “But I get shot at a lot more than I get dropped in the river!”
Breathing heavily, Five sat back. “We can debate the inanity of your priorities later,” he said, shaking his head while the water lapped at his stomach. “We’re going to need to look for a weak point in the glass, maybe at the edge. Anything we an exploit.”
Diego watched as Five tried jamming the knife in the crack at the window, trying to leverage enough force to make some kind of move. Five couldn’t possibly know just how much extra cash Diego had shelled out to make sure that the exterior of the car was completely impenetrable. He’d lived in a shithole and made his car a fortress.
Because priorities.
Shit.
The priority to save his own life was, ironically, going to kill him now.
Worse, it was going to kill Five.
Diego knew he wasn’t the one pulling the trigger or throwing the knife, but this was on him. This was still going to be on him.
He shook his head, throat feeling tight. “It’s not going to work,” he said, feeling a chill run up his spine as the water crested at his belly button and then just kept rising. “Five!”
Five didn’t spare him a look, turning his attention to a new point on the windshield.
“Five!” he said, and it was his turn to be insistent. “It’s not going to work!”
He reached out, grabbing his brother by the shoulder.
Five whirled back toward him, a little wild eyed. “It has to work,” he snapped. “Or we’re both going to die in this stupid car.”
“I will, maybe,” Diego said. He sighed. “But you don’t have to.”
Five, idiot that he was, looked like he genuinely had no idea what Diego was talking about.
Diego rolled his eyes. The car was eerily dark now with no light from the moon or the road above as they sank deeper still. “Jump, Five. You need to jump out of here.”
Five stopped and stared, his breathing almost suspended for a moment while the car tilted a little and water sloshed up toward his chest. “No,” he said, like the answer was obvious and non-negotiable. “Even if I wanted to, I’ve expended too much energy tonight. There’s no way I have enough energy left for a jump with you.”
Diego swallowed. Hard. “Five,” he said again, willing his brother to get it. Smart as he was -- and Five was the genius of the bunch -- he was still an idiot when it mattered. “You jump alone.”
The words seemed to hardly compute, as if Five couldn’t even conceptualize the reality of what Diego was suggesting. All his calculations, and Five wasn’t able to calculate for his own survival. “But even if I could muster up enough energy for a single jump, that’ll be it,” he said. “I’d never get back in.”
He said it like it was a self evident endgame. That that was it. Like together was the only option.
“But you can get out,” Diego said, watching as the water rose up to Five’s chest now. They were almost to the bottom of the river, the water outside darker than ever. “And who knows? Maybe the door will open from the outside. Maybe you can get me out.”
Five was trained and skilled, but he still had the lanky body of a 13 year old. There was no way he’d be able to force the door open, inside or out. But if it got Five out of the car, then Diego was willing to live with that lie.
Five shook his head, the logic seemingly falling short. “No,” he said. And he gestured to the windows again. “Do you have something else we can use? A crowbar?”
Before Diego could answer, Five was already back at the windows, slamming away with the knife as the water splashed around him. The sound was oddly muffled by the roar of the water as it pressed in all around them.
“Five, it’s not going to work. Five--”
He reached out, taking his brother by the shoulder again. Five looked enraged when he turned back. “If we don’t open a window, we’re going to die,” he seethed. “We need to get out.”
“We do,” Diego said. He nodded to the water outside. “So do it! Go!”
Five drew a breath, shaking his head stoutly. “No, if we work together, pry at the same time, we--”
“Five!”
Five lunged at him, lifting the knife to Diego’s throat in a trained, menacing motion. “Do it!” he growled. “Do it or I kill you!”
The threat, however convincing, was empty. “You can’t threatened to kill me while trying to save my life, dumbass,” he said. “No one will blame you for jumping. I don’t blame you.”
Five stared at him as the water rushed in faster, at his neck now. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“There’s no point in both of us dying,” Diego reasoned.
“Exactly,” Five said. He withdrew the knife, gesturing to the window again. “So help me!”
Five’s determination, his utter belief -- well, it was tempting. Five had a flare for dramatics when you got down to it, and he wasn’t a leader like Luther but he knew how to rally people to a cause when he had to. He seemed to hate doing it, but that had never stopped him before. And really, if Five could stop the apocalypse, then maybe he wasn’t crazy. Maybe he could do it.
But as Diego lifted his own knife to help, he realized that they had stopped sinking. They were at the bottom now, and the water was up to his chest. For Five, it was lapping at his chin. His brother didn’t seem to even notice. He probably wouldn’t notice, not until he was dead.
Diego stifled a curse. All that he wanted to protect people and here he was, leading his brother to a watery grave. “Five, you have to stop,” he said, pulling Five’s hand back. “You have to jump before it’s too late!”
Five shook his head. “No, I told you, we go together or not at all,” he said. “You’re the one who said it, that I left. I left and outlived you all once. Every day that I survived in the apocalypse, I promised myself that, if I had a chance to do it again, I would choose differently. I would put the family first. No matter how stupid, how reckless, how infuriating -- family, Diego. So you can sit there and do nothing or you can help me get the hell out of this mess.”
The thing about Five was that he didn’t lie. It wasn’t that he had some kind of moral objection -- at least not as far as Diego could see -- but it was more that it wasn’t worth his time. Sure, Five would withhold the truth when he deemed it convenient, but lying almost seemed to take too much emotional capacity. If he were uncomfortable, he’d blink his way out. If he was angry, he’s bash in a few heads. For all the brains he had in that head, he’d never realized that the easy way out was the one you made up on the spot.
Five told the truth because the truth was the only thing worth telling, and the plainness of that was what made him so compelling. When he took the time to tell you something, you knew it was something worth listening to.
Diego’s gut twisted; his chest ached. The pressure outside the car was reaching a breaking point, and the water was too high. Five could talk all he wanted about family, and all Diego could hear was that Five needed Diego to save his life. Diego was bad with family, that much was true, but saving lives? Diego was good with that shit.
Really damn good.
Gritting his teeth, he took his knife and sat forward. “Weakest spot is going to be in the middle,” he said, jamming his knife at the line where the windshield ended and the car began. “If we can break the seal, we might have a chance.”
Five didn’t need to be told again.
With unrelenting vigor, Five moved forward, directing his full strength at the window, exactly where Diego indicated. Following him, Diego added his own strength, and under their combined effort, Diego felt something shift.
It was a small movement, but Diego imagined it to be significant. One crack in the seal; one crack in the foundation. That was all it took.
As they worked, the water continued to rise. It was up to Diego’s neck now, and Five had to push himself into a standing position to keep his head above the water. Working in tandem again, Diego’s knife slid under the rim of the windshield. He leveraged himself as best he could, Five straining next to him. Then, with an unexpected rush, there was a loud crack.
For a second, Diego thought they had done it, they had opened the windshield.
Five fell back, however, badly off balance. His knife had snapped off at the hilt as he splashed back against the rising water.
“Shit!” Five said. He was soaked now, head to toe. “Do you have another one?”
Diego spat water out of his mouth and realized that the water would be above his head now if he were still strapped in. They were both floating, heads pressed up to the air pocket that still remained within the top few inches of the car’s ceiling. “Doesn’t matter!” he yelled back, craning his neck to take a good breath. “We’re out of time! You have to jump now, Five. You have to!”
Five drew in a ragged, gasping breath. His exhaustion was starting to show again, more pronounced than before. It was strange, really. How someone could look so old and so young all at once. The look on his face was nothing short of tortured, and Diego watched as his expression screwed up with concentration.
For a moment, Diego thought Five would do it, that he would jump out to save his life. It would mean certain death for Diego, but that was the risk of this job. Diego had accepted that risk; he’d embraced it. He could do this, this one last job, and he could do it with satisfaction knowing that Five survived.
But, to Diego’s shock, Five blew out the breath and shook his head. “We still have time!”
Diego spluttered a protest, but before he could stop his brother, Five had already gathered one last mighty breath and descended below the water again. “Five -- what--”
The question didn’t matter. Five wasn’t able to hear him, and even if he was, Five was well past listening. With no weapon in hand, Five was using all his body weight to push at the glass with his feet, and Diego dove after him for the want of something better to do.
The job, after all.
He had to do the job.
Positioning himself next to Five, he braced his back against the seat, placing his feet on the windshield. He used his greater strength to gain additional leverage, but it was hard to see if they were making any progress. The water had nearly filled the car now, and the muffled sounds were strangely disconnect from reality.
They were dying; they were drowning. How long would it be before someone dragged their bodies from beneath the water? Would the family honor them the way the old man would have? Would there be statues or paintings? A simple service in the courtyard with ashes dumped in the rain?
The job never required success, merely action. Diego had trained as hard as he could, but that was never a guarantee. He’d thought he’d been ready, but maybe he was wrong.
He looked at Five, still straining against the inevitable.
Maybe he was wrong about a lot of things.
Diego thought about that, about his family. He thought about Luther and his security system. He thought about Allison getting custody of Claire. He thought about Klaus at AA meetings. He thought about Ben, learning to manifest himself in new ways. He thought of Vanya and how happy she looked now, like she had never looked before.
And Five--
Next to him, Five faltered. He blinked a few times more than before as his strength noticeably started to wane. The tension started to drain from his body, and Diego turned toward him, grabbing him by the shoulders.
He attempted to force Five to the air pocket only to find there wasn’t enough left to breathe. Frantic, he shook his brother, trying to draw the smaller brother’s attention to him. Five blinked lazily in his direction while Diego screamed into the stillness.
“Jump! You have to jump!”
It was an empty roar, however, bubbles against the expanse. Five’s eyes unfocused completely as he blinked again. His body was entirely limp now, his head tipping forward and back as Diego tried to shake some sense back into him. It was no good, however. Five’s eyes rolled back, and Diego could see the whites of his eyes before the lids closed at didn’t open again. More bubbles were released, this time as Five exhaled heavily one last time. His small frame was pliant in Diego’s grip, and the fight was over.
No, the fight wasn’t just over.
Diego had to call it like it was.
The fight was lost.
His own chest was burning now, the pressure from the lack of oxygen seeming to mount. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t breathe. The pressure in his chest was matched by a throbbing in his head. Five was drowning right in front of him, and what good was Diego? What about the job now?
The frustration mounted, and Diego howled against the water. It threatened to choke him, cloying in his mouth and nose as he shook his brother again. Five showed no response this time, his dark hair wafting listlessly in Diego’s waves.
The frustration reached its breaking point, and Diego was struck by the inevitability of it all. All he could do now was wait. For all his kicking, all his moaning, all his restlessness, he was reduced to this. To wasting time, just like his siblings. Only while the others explore their passions and find themselves, Diego was busy dying.
He clamped his mouth shut against the inevitability of it all. He wasn’t ready to die; he wasn’t ready to let go. The pressure to do something, the pressure to be someone, the pressure to show his family what mattered -- it burned in his chest, more virulent than ever before. Would they see it now? Would they understand?
Diego looked at Five and closed his eyes.
Did Diego understand? The cost of action? The reality of putting the job first and letting family come second? Did it matter that they had saved that family? Did it matter that they had saved that street? Was he going to be judged by the culmination of his actions? Or did the only choice that mattered the last one he made?
Was it just about him?
Or was it about the people he left behind?
The people who went before?
Shit, he needed to breathe. He needed to breathe. He was dying for want of oxygen. He was dying.
His mind flitted from one thing to the next. He thought about the man in the weapons cache and the way he’d smiled. He thought about the six digit code he never should have been able to guess. He thought about the way he’d said so quickly that he didn’t need to tell the others.
He looked at Five, and thought about the equations scrawled across his walls. He thought about Vanya playing her violin and Ben in the library. Klaus was knitted a scarf no one would wear, and Allison was on the phone with Claire.
And Luther was there, too. Large and looming right outside the window.
Diego blinked, confused.
His shell shocked mind struggled to comprehend, and for a long moment, he thought that this was the throes of oxygen desperation finally kicking in. How long had it been? It felt like hours, but it had to have been seconds. He would be dying now, wouldn’t he?
But, to his confusion, Luther moved outside the door, mouthing something frantic at Diego. His muddled brain had no way to comprehend it, and it didn’t seem to matter. With a look of concentration, Luther braced himself. Within seconds, he had wrenched the door. First, the metal cracked before Luther’s brute strength was able to rip the damaged panel clean off its hinges.
Dumbstruck, Diego watched as the door floated to the ground before he realized that Luther was reaching for him. The hand, still covered in a fingerless glove, was outstretched. A hallucination, then. Maybe this was the invitation to the afterlife. That was a hell of a way to go, Diego thought wryly. With the brother he couldn’t stand in life.
What else was he going to do? It was all family, in the end, then. It was all family.
Diego reached out and took Luther’s hand.
To his surprise, it was surprisingly solid.
Almost like Luther was really there.
Almost like Diego wasn’t dead.
The suddenness of that realization was overwhelming.
Holy shit.
He wasn’t dead?
How the hell wasn’t he dead?
There was probably a better time and place for that. Like, when he wasn’t still underwater. Still, the burning in his chest notwithstanding, he twisted himself to the side, pulling his hand back. As he moved, he rotated Five around and thrusting the still figure toward Number One.
Luther didn’t need it explained to him. He took Five securely before reaching back for Diego.
This time, when Diego saw the outstretched hand, he resisted it. Diego, out of impulse, swatted his hand away with a glower.
Luther offered it again.
Diego responded to the gesture, presumably of goodwill, by shoving Luther’s oversized ass forward. Five had already stopped breathing; there was no time for Luther to waste.
With implicit understanding, Luther pulled away, Five close to his chest as he kicked toward the surface. Diego followed, his extremities numb as he drew himself out of the car and followed in Luther’s wake. Alive, though he was, Diego found the whole thing disorienting. He ascended in confusion, trying to piece together everything that had happened.
The man at the house.
The bomb with the passcode.
The conversation about telling the others in the car.
The accident that sent them underwater.
Five’s determination to fight it out by Diego’s side.
The way Five’s life had drained out of him, leaving Diego to die alone.
This had to be what it was like, a near-death experience. He had heard people talk about it; he had heard Klaus talk about it. How had he described it? Eternity in a second? Your whole life flashing before your eyes?
That was the only explanation.
For why Diego was still breathing and Five was not.
Panic clenched in his stomach, and Diego kicked faster, coming up alongside Luther as they neared the surface. The reflection of the moon was across the water when they broke the surface, and Luther spluttered loudly, taking gulping breaths from his rescue attempt.
Diego tried to remember to force air into his lungs when he was struck by the fact that Five hadn’t made any effort at all. In fact, his head was still dipped forward, bobbing toward the water as Luther held him afloat.
“Come on!” Diego yelled, starting toward the shore. “We need to get him out of the water!”
There was no time for a power struggle, not now. Diego wasn’t trying to show his dominance any more than Luther was trying to defend his. This was how it was in the heat of the moment. They could fight -- they would fight -- about trivial things. But when it counted? Then, they both knew the value of family.
They knew that it was worth fighting for. Worth dying for.
Diego hit the land, staggering to his feet, turning back to help Luther bring Five up out of the murky water.
It had be worth living for, too.
Didn’t it?
Luther lowered Five, but Diego guided his head, protecting it so it wouldn’t hit the ground hard. The road above was quiet; the night was still. Diego wondered where the man was and if the families were back in their houses yet, secure and safe, a job well done.
Leaning over Five, Luther muttered a curse. “He’s not breathing.”
Diego was drawn back to the moment, and he came around to the other side of Five. Luther was crouched low, his head over Five’s mouth. Without asking, Diego nudged him out of the way, pressing his fingers to the pulse point on Five’s neck. He waited for the familiar thump, but nothing happened. He adjusted his fingers, and across from him Luther shook his head.
“He hasn’t got a pulse,” Luther announced, sounding surprisingly collected. He had always been cool under pressure. Diego never gave him credit for that, never liked to talk about how that was one of the reasons that Dad probably saw him as the ideal Number One. Without waiting for a response from Diego, Luther squared his shoulders. “Starting CPR.”
It was surreal, really. All those years of training, and Diego hadn’t much attention to the safety courses. The courses about how to treat wounds and save lives -- what had been the point? If you did the job right, none of that mattered. Sure, Diego was prepared. He knew first aid; he knew CPR. But he had never had to use them.
He wasn’t supposed to use them.
Luther had lined up his hands over Five’s chest, and Diego remembered that this wasn’t just a job. This was family.
“Stop,” Diego said, getting himself into position instead.
“Diego, we need to start his heart--”
“And if you do CPR, you’re just going to crush his ribcage,” Diego said sharply. “You do the rescue breathing. I’ve got compressions.”
Luther, fully in the moment, did not object. As Diego started compressions -- right over the center of the chest, rapid, deep compressions -- Luther scooted himself up to Five’s head. It seemed that all that training from Dad had paid off. The Umbrella Academy, though not active by choice, could still be summoned by necessity. Diego paused and Luther knew his part, pinching off Five’s nose and blowing in two quick breaths.
It was training; it was rote. Diego could do it without thinking, without thinking about how this was Five. How it was Five who wasn’t breathing, Five whose chest was bending beneath his pressure, Five who was dead. Because that was what this was, when you got down to it. Five had come along to help on the job, and now he was dead. Diego had traded the job for family with no reservations and here was the result.
Small, pale and still on the banks of the river.
Pausing, Luther breathed for Five again, and Diego could feel his chest rise up beneath his hands. Without hesitating, he started up again, trying to calculate how long the human brain could go without oxygen. Five would be able to make those calculations.
If he wasn’t dead, anyway.
He had to wonder if Five had seen this in his probability maps? Had he known what he was risking? Would he still call it worthwhile?
Family was his priority.
Five was a prick and an asshole, but family was always his priority.
What did that say about Diego?
He stopped long enough for Luther to deliver two more breaths before he started again.
You had to move fast to do this job. You couldn’t think about the consequences. You couldn’t think about the significance. That wasn’t how you saved lives.
He paused again and Luther blew in two more breaths.
Diego resumed compressions, but now he could feel his arms aching. He could feel the toll as it accumulated. He could feel the weight he tried to pretend didn’t matter. He could hear the man in the basement, telling Diego that he knew more about him than Diego knew about himself. He could hear Five telling him about how losing his family was the worst mistake he’d ever made and how he’d sacrificed everything to get them back.
Everything.
His compressions faltered, but Luther didn’t notice. At the pause, he breathed again, and Diego had no choice but to continue on.
That was it, then. Diego had no choice. He had never had a choice. No one asked him if he wanted to be a part of this family. No one asked him if he was happy being Number Two. No one asked if he wanted to stay. No one asked if he was happy the way things were. No one asked him if he wanted to be knocked into the river. And no one certainly asked if he wanted to watch his brother die in his arms.
No one asked. That was how it was with family. Family was assumption. Family was obligation. Family was a setup for failure.
“Diego, come on!” Luther yelled at him. “You can’t stop! You can’t!”
Saving lives; family. Sometimes they were the same thing.
Sometimes they were the only thing.
Diego pressed harder, faster. That was what he did. He rose to the challenge. He succeeded. Always.
The air was like fire in his lungs and tears burned his eyes.
Always.
Without warning, Five’s body convulsed beneath his touch, and Diego stopped short of his next compression in shock. Reeling, he fell back on his heels while Luther frantically scrambled to roll Five on his side as he coughed up river water.
Sometimes things worked.
Even when they shouldn’t.
Diego wasn’t about to start questioning small miracles on a night like tonight.
Five gurgles, spewing more water as he gasped wetly for air. Luther coaxed him along, supporting his head while he heaved for much needed oxygen.
The pressure in Diego’s own chest hadn’t abated, not even a little.
Shit, there wasn’t time to question that stuff right now. There was no time to question six digit codes and CPR success rates after a drowning.
Not when he had so many other things to question first.
-o-
Diego wasn’t about to admit it, but it was pretty nice that Luther was in control of this much. Diego was strained and exhausted, the events of the night finally catching up with him. For the time being, he was more than okay with being Number Two. He sat back, struggling to catch his own breath, while Five’s desperate breathing started to even out.
“It’s okay,” Luther said gently, still holding him up. “You’re okay.”
Weakly, Five tried to push himself up. When his arms threatened to fail him, Luther propped him up, leaning him against his chest. Five collapsed against Luther’s hold, pale face turned up to the sky as he gasped for air.
“Just take it easy,” Luther coached. “We’ve got you.”
Five inhaled again, wincing at the effort. He blinked a few times. “Diego?” he croaked. “Is Diego--?”
Diego stared at him numbly, too dumbfounded to realize what Five was asking.
Luther was quick on the uptake, though. “Diego’s fine. He’s right here,” he said, and he looked at Diego, eyes imploring. “Diego’s here.”
The belated realization was the Five was worried about him.
Five had drowned, staying to the end to help Diego, and the first thought he had was whether or not Diego was okay.
Shit, there were heroes.
And then there was family.
He sat forward, remembering to move. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say. “I’m fine. We’re both fine.”
That was some version of the truth, at least. Limited in its interpretation.
Five, dazed as he was, didn’t seem to question it.
Luther, still propping Five up, was another story. Though he kept a firm grip on Five, he lifted his eyes to Diego. He gave Diego a cursory once over before locking his eyes on Diego’s face.
Cheeks burning, Diego found himself looking away. He watched the rise and fall of Five’s chest instead. In and out, in and out.
It wasn’t much of a reprieve.
“What happened?”
That wasn’t a question as much as it was a massive understatement. How the hell was Diego supposed to answer that? Did he even know?
He shook his head, at a loss. The breathless laugh that escape his lips was the only thing that made sense. “I don’t even know.”
Luther did not look to be in the mood for shit. He shook his head. “I know you were working a job, Diego. I know Five went with you. He said it was weird, that it got personal, at the old trianing house.”
“Wait,” Diego said. He looked at Five, who had closed his eyes again while he focused on his breathing. “Five told you? When?”
“He called me for backup,” Luther said, as though that answer was obvious. “He said where you were and that there was a bomb.”
“We disarmed the bomb,” Diego told him.
“I figured that when I got to the street and found it blocked off with cops,” he said.
That made sense. But a lot of it didn’t make sense. Diego wrinkled his nose. “But how’d you find us then?”
“Five’s cell phone. He had it on,” Luther said. “It was his idea. He told me to track it in case things went south.”
In case maniacs used their birthday as a passcode and they got run off the road and nearly drowned in the river. Maybe there was something to be said for contingencies.
Still, Diego couldn’t believe that Five had gone behind his back. He’d trusted Five. “The bastard,” he muttered, wearily closing his own eyes. “He said he wouldn’t tell.”
“Well, you’re lucky he did,” Luther said. “He saved your life.”
Luther had a point there. Diego opened his eyes again, looking at the small form of their oldest sibling. It was possible Five had a point, too, though Diego wasn’t quite ready to admit it.
Still, Luther did just drag them out of the water. Stiffly, Diego bobbed his head to acknowledge that much. “Well, it’s good timing on your part,” he said. “I must have been seconds from passing out. Much longer and you would have been reviving both of us.”
Luther gave him a funny look at that, as if something had just occurred to him. “The car must have filled up slowly, then.”
Diego made a face. “What?”
“Diego, it took me 10 minutes to get to the house and another five to realize that you and Five weren’t there,” Luther explained. “Another five in transit, and then it took me a good five minutes to trace your car off the edge of the road. I found it pretty quickly when I dove in, but I don’t know. At least 30 minutes passed from the time Five called me to the time I pulled you out.”
Diego listened, trying to do the math. He was good on his feet, but the classroom skills had never been his forte. No, that wasn’t it. He had just rarely seen the value. Sure, he could calculate trajectories in his head, but long division wasn’t exactly a necessary skill in the field. Much less the theoretical crap Five wasted all his time on.
Still, the math on this was hard to parse. How long did it take them to get in the car? How long did they drive? How fast did they sink? It had felt like a lifetime, sure, but Diego was still breathing by the end. It had to be less than that.
He shook his head. “You must have lost track of it.”
Luther looked downright incredulous. “I always clock the missions. You know how Dad was about that,” he said. He pointed at his watch to prove his point. A timer was going. It clocked in at 41 minutes and counting. “You were underwater for a long time.”
Diego scoffed, ready to refute the comments on principle alone. Luther had to be wrong, of course. Luther was often wrong, big oaf that he was. He could hit hard and follow orders, but that didn’t make him a mastermind. “There’s no way.”
“Obviously, there is,” Luther said. He nodded to Five, who was still gaping like a fish with his eyes closed. “Five drowned, didn’t he?”
Five did drown. That was true. Diego had watched it happen.
“And you,” Luther said, gesturing his his free hand toward Diego. “You weren’t even out of breath. So what gives?”
Diego couldn’t muster the scoff this time. The thought of what had happened spun through his head as he tried to put it together and make the pieces parse. They’d gone off the road, the car had started to sink. He had told Five to get out; Five had refused. They had worked until Five had passed out and then Diego had given up and waited for the inevitable.
It had felt like a lifetime.
But it had only been seconds.
Hadn’t it?
“My sense of time must be off,” Diego said. “It must have taken a long time for the car to go down. Five had just drowned when you came. That’s all.”
He said it with as much confidence as he could muster.
It wasn’t enough.
“Doesn’t any of this seem strange to you?” Luther asked.
“The whole thing is strange,” Diego said. “The Umbrella Academy is strange.”
“I’m serious, Diego,” he said. “The water when I got here was still. There were no bubbles. And you had the presence of mind to make me take Five first. You weren’t in any rush. You weren’t drowning, Diego.”
“I’m bigger,” he said. “More lung capacity.”
“Diego--”
“What?” Diego snapped back. “Five drowned; I didn’t. What of it?”
The second he asked his question, his mind supplied the answer. Just like he knew the six digit code, he knew why he hadn’t drowned. He knew why he wasn’t out of breath. He knew why, for all that he wanted to take a gulping breaths of air, it never made any difference.
The thing he didn’t know, apparently, was himself anymore.
Luther drew a breath, calm and diplomatic, as only Luther could be in the face of outright aggression. “Diego, I just am trying to figure this out--”
Diego lifted his eyes. The eye contact was enough to stop Luther’s speech mid-sentence, and the coldness of the revelation made Diego shudder. “Maybe it was longer,” he said, his voice trailing off a little. Maybe his life hadn’t flashed before his eyes. Maybe just his future. Maybe that was enough.
Luther wet his lips. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Diego said, the words falling from his tongue like his numb fingers punching in the keys to a passcode he had no right to guess. “That I think I have another power.”
It was outrageous to say, outrageous to think, except in all the ways that it wasn’t. They were all exceptional people, and they were all still mastering their specific talents. Klaus had repressed the hell out of his abilities, and now he was constantly discovering new things he could do. Five, for all his years of practice, was still hit or miss when it came to his power. As for Luther and Allison, it was hard to say the extent of their powers, but just look at Vanya. Vanya had only come into her own as an adult.
So why not? Why wouldn’t Diego have another power?
Hadn’t he always wanted that? Hadn’t he dreamed of it? Hadn’t he wanted something to give him a leg up, to put him ahead of the others? To make him better than Luther?
Luther, sitting across from him, blinked wide eyes. “You have another power?”
Despite the surge of certainty, his voice shook when he spoke. “Apparently.”
Luther’s face screwed up. “It’s, what, though? You can hold your breath?”
“How else do you explain it?” Diego asked. He pointed to the river. “I was underwater for at least ten minutes. I should have drowned well before the time you got down there, and when I got to the surface, I wasn’t even winded. I mean, stranger shit has happened to us, hasn’t it?”
Clearly skeptical, Luther chewed his bottom lip. “But usually they’re related powers,” he said. “I mean, Five can travel through time and space. Klaus can communicate with the dead and channel spirits to do things, including levitation or whatever. But bending objects? How does that connect to holding your breath?”
“It’s all air, right?” Diego said. “So maybe there’s more than one way to control it.”
Luther still didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t need to be convinced. Sighing a little, he looked back down at Five. “You’re right: weirder things have happened,” he said. He looked back up at Diego, a smile playing lightly on his lips. “I’m not sure how it’ll come in handy, but it’s definitely good to know for future reference.”
Luther’s endorsement should have made him feel better, but Diego looked at Five, too. Diego hadn’t known about his ability, he had had no idea that he would survive. But here he was, fine and dandy. It made Five’s sacrifice for him pointless. Five had died for nothing.
Five wouldn’t think that way, though. Five would insist that he made the only choice he could make, that it wasn’t a choice at all. And it wasn’t, not for Five. Five put the family first, above all things. That wasn’t a cute thing to say or a convenient scapegoat. It was real; it was tangible.
Like the air in his lungs right now.
He shook his head wearily, rubbing his hand over his eyes. Five knew his priorities. So did Luther. The big jackass had showed up, no questions asked, the second Five had called. And Diego could give his brother shit, but Luther had found them on his own. He had done that and not even offered a word of criticism despite the obvious fact that Diego’s little side job had nearly gotten Five killed.
Family.
What the hell was it about family?
“We should get him back,” Diego said, nodding at Five again.
Luther gathered him up a little closer. “We should get both of you back.”
As Luther scooped Five up, Diego followed him up the bank and to the side of the road where one of Dad’s cars was parked. He found, for once, that he had no heart to disagree.
-o-
Luther drove, and Diego took Five in the back. It was a large car -- Dad had always preferred older things, things that endured -- and the roomy interior gave Diego plenty of room to keep Five comfortable.
Comfortable was a relative distinction, of course. Five didn’t look particularly comfortable. Although his breathing continued to grow even, it still sounded strained. The exhaustion -- from drowning or the exertion of transporting people earlier -- and left him spent, and though Diego suspected he was conscious on and off, Five kept his eyes closed throughout the journey. They would have Mom look him over when they got back. Check for broken ribs, pneumonia, things like that.
Of course, it would be inevitable that the rest of the family would find out. Diego would have to explain what happened. He would have to explain the job, at the very least. It was likely that someone would figure out that his erratic appearances around the mansion weren’t a coincidence. Hell, Five would probably outright tell them that he was playing vigilante on his own again.
And there would be questions, then. About this job. Why had it been at one of the houses? Who had been the bad guy in the basement?
Those were the details he couldn’t avoid, the ones that Five would corroborate with or without Diego.
But the rest.
The things Five didn’t know.
Diego looked out the window, his chest feeling tight.
Should he tell them about the man in the basement? Did he have to explain the link to the mall attack? Should he talk about how many weapons were taken? Was it necessary to disclose everything the man had said? About Diego, about family?
And should he tell them about the passcode?
Should he tell them about the doubts that he had? The desire he had to leave? That his priorities weren’t their priorities?
He looked at the back of Luther’s head in the driver’s seat. Then he looked at Five’s face, still grimaced in some approximation of sleep.
The job was his priority. He was willing to die for the job. That was what made him a hero.
But Five was willing to die for family. It wasn’t clear if that made him a hero, but Diego had to wonder if it made him a better person.
Who did he want to be, then? The guy who talked down killers? The one who guessed passcodes? The idiot who snuck out on his family and plotted his moment to leave?
Or was maybe it not such a bad thing to be the one who stayed. He’d hated Luther for it, thought he was dumb, but the others had all come back. They were all staying now. Diego had thought they didn’t get it, but what if it was him? What if he was looking for something that he couldn’t find on a police scanner?
The car thumped over the road, and Diego did his best to steady Five from the worst of the impacts. It was, to be fair, the absolute least he could do.
He closed his eyes again, resting his head against the window. He listened to Five breathe, the quiet rasps, in and out, in and out.
They were pulling into the garage when Diego realized he had been holding his breath the whole time.
-o-
It was late.
No, it was early.
Whatever it was, no one else was awake yet. This was of some convenience, of course. There were fewer questions that way, though to think of it as a relief would be naive. The questions were coming; they were inevitable.
This way, Diego might have time to think up an answer.
Probably not, but whatever. He could try some wishful thinking for a change.
As it was, he was content to keep Luther on point, following along as Luther roused Five and helped him into the house. He started up toward Five’s bedroom, ordering Diego to get Mom.
“It’s not an emergency, but make sure she’s ready,” Luther said, already partway up the first flight of stairs. “I want him checked out now.”
Given that this was technically Diego’s fault, he wasn’t in a position to argue. Still, as he climbed the stairs and turned toward the landing where Mom charged, he had his hesitations. Because there she was, perfect and pristine. Face upturned toward the paintings, she looked serene. Not even the cord from the side of her neck could change that.
Mom was what had defined family for him. At least, she had defined the only good parts. She was love. She was all he knew of love.
But family was more than that, no matter how much Diego hated it. Family was staying. Family was telling the truth. Family was staying sober. Family was a smile and dinner together. Family was coming along, even when you didn’t agree.
Family was more than Diego thought.
More complicated, more aggravating.
More meaningful, more powerful.
Walking away from her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
His chest still hurt.
He took a breath.
It didn’t help.
Sighing, he went over to her, sitting down gently next to her. Carefully, he brushed her hair out of the way and disconnected the cord. She whirred with a flash of blue before her eyes fluttered open. It took only a few seconds for her processor to come back online, and she looked at Diego and smiled. “Why, Diego, dear, you’re up late. Is everything okay?”
The question hurt. Diego blinked hard, choking on a laugh. “No,” he said. “Nothing’s okay at all.”
Mom’s face registered modest concern, and she got to her feet, adjusting her dress primly. “Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s fix it. What seems to be the problem?”