Umbrella Academy fic: Changing All the Scenery (6/20)
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
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
PART SEVENTEEN
PART EIGHTEEN
PART NINETEEN
PART TWENTY
SIX
Yeah, so, things are pretty weird these days.
First, like, Klaus is sober. Sober sober. Really, totally completely sober. He hasn’t felt this sober since he was 13, and he’s honestly not sure what to make of it. It’s just so weird, right? Surreal, even. Like, he knows he’s the same guy with the same eccentric taste in music and the same flamboyant personality. But he’s different, too. He’s got more focus now -- or, you know, the basic ability to focus, which is not something he’s ever had.
And that has changed everything.
Seriously, everything.
Klaus can be prone to hyperbole, but that’s not what this is. No, Klaus has an entirely new grasp on life. He understands things more; he understands himself in relation to those things more. Which is to say, in so many roundabout ways, he understands his powers.
Or he’s starting to.
Because his powers are dope, man. Talking to the dead has never seemed all that cool to him, but he can channel them now. They can manifest and do shit and it’s powerful. It feels weird, a little like he’s electrocuting himself in a bath of cold water with a rusty toaster, but the rush of adrenaline more than makes up for it.
It doesn’t stop there, either.
One morning Klaus randomly started to float. Another day, he was too lazy to pick up the television remote and it came right to him. Once, he’s pretty sure he changed channels with the power of his mind, and, like, he’s not even trying. These powers are coming to him naturally, like they’ve been lying latent and dormant all these years and they’re just ready to come out.
It’s all pretty nifty on a day to day basis when he can impress the hell out of his siblings.
Apparently, it’s even more useful in a fight.
Okay, Klaus isn’t going to lie.
He’s super useful.
When a bunch of bad guys descended on the mansion, there’s an inherent expectation that Klaus is still a liability. Luther is like, “Stay behind me!” And Diego’s all, “Klaus, you okay?”
But dude, Klaus is more than okay. He doesn’t need to stand behind anyone. He’s got this. He’s really, totally, completely got this.
He takes out a few guys all on his own. He lets Ben handle another few and the next thing he knows, he’s still standing when all is said and done. Considering that the last time people broke into the mansion, he’d wound up kidnapped, this is a dramatic turnaround.
Everyone is all somber because it’s an attack and oh no, it’s the Commission and is everyone okay and that chandelier needs to be fixed again and it cost several grand last time but holy shit, did they see him in action?
It’s cool!
Weird, sure, but weird in the absolutely most cool way imaginable. If Klaus had known that things could be like this, he might not have stayed high all those years. He should have faced the truth about who he was a long time ago. The truth has set him free!
Nothing is going to hold him back now, he decides with an air of exhilaration.
Nothing.
Then, Five hands him a slip of paper with his name on it. The little dude looks like he’s seen a ghost, and Klaus has the presence of mind to stop smiling like an idiot when he opens it. There is a message typed on it, simple and to the point.
Attention Klaus Hargreeves: Private David Katz did not have to die. The circumstances of his death have been deemed suspicious by our internal division.
He reads it and the smile doesn’t just fade. It falls off his face and his stomach bottoms out. He feels like he’s going to be sick.
He reads it again, and the feeling solidifies like ice in his stomach.
Looking up, Five is still staring at him, expression grave.
He looks back at the slip of paper, reading it a third time.
Apparently, he thinks numbly, things are about to get even weirder around here.
-o-
At some point, Five takes the paper back from him. Klaus allows this because why isn’t he going to allow it, and he’s still standing there, staring dumbly at his empty hands while the rest of his siblings read the memo.
“Are we sure it’s the Commission?” Vanya asks. “What if it’s a trick?”
“Who could mimic that?” Allison counters.
Diego grunts his disagreement. “Who would want to?”
Luther shakes his head, brow furrowed. “I think we have to assume the source is valid. The real question is what is the point of sending it?”
Five is strangely quiet, chewing on his bottom lip, apparently deep in thought.
“We can’t assume they have good intentions,” Ben offers.
“You think?” Diego retorts. “I’m pretty sure they’re not going to be offering us any favors any time soon.”
“Or it is a trick, like Vanya said,” Allison suggests. “Maybe they’re trying to set us up?”
“But how?” Vanya asks, sounding a little at a loss. “It’s not telling us to go anywhere. Just to look into it.”
“Which implies they know more about it,” Ben says.
Five finally gathers a little breath. “It’s safe to assume it’s probably the truth,” he says. “The Commission has no ethical objections to lying, especially if it is in preservation of the timeline, but most of the time it’s all about manipulating the truth. To recreate it in the most advantageous version to serve their particular ends.”
Luther is frowning deeply. It’s deep consternation, and for some reason, Klaus fights the inexplicable urge to laugh. It’s a memo about his dead boyfriend from the past, and Luther is experiencing consternation. Naturally. “Okay,” Luther says slowly, oblivious to Klaus’ irreverant humor. “So what would that mean here?”
Five just looks weary. He’s not surprised or upset, just exhausted. Like he’s expected this.
Well, not this. There’s no way Five could suspect that Klaus boyfriend from the past died under suspicious circumstances. Not even Five, in all his travels and calculations, could expect that.
But Five’s expected the Commission all this time. He’s been saying it for weeks, and it’s not that Klaus hasn’t believed him, it’s just that some threats are too existential. Klaus is simply concerned with getting through the day without falling off the proverbial wagon. Worrying about potential threats before they are realized -- well, that’s what Five’s here for.
“It means,” Five says, and he doesn’t quite sound exasperated. He’s not annoyed, for once. He’s just tired. Like he hasn’t had his morning coffee. Or like coffee is no longer enough. “That they have a motive for sending this. The answers we find, whatever they may be, are the ones they want us to find.”
Klaus finally gets it. He understands the joke now. He knows what’s so damn funny. He shakes his head and laughs, hoarse and gruff. It’s strangled in his throat. “But there’s no us,” he interjects, and he doesn’t realize how full his eyes are of tears until he blinks and one slips down his cheek. “This memo is for me, remember? Not us. Me.”
They’ve always accused Klaus of being selfish, and Klaus has always accepted that with minimal objections. He’s never much cared mostly because he’s been self invested. There’s a difference, he thinks. They think he’s doing stuff just because he doesn’t care about the rest of them. He does stuff because he’s worried he’s going to lose his mind otherwise.
His control has been better since getting clean and saving the world, but it’s silly to think he’s not still at risk. He can talk to dead people all day long, but he’s not sure he’s ready to face the one ghost he actually loves more than life itself.
Luther looks like he’s slapped him, and Diego seems to be balling his fists as if Klaus is provoking a fight. He’s not, but Allison seems to situate herself between them just in case. Ben flickers with Klaus’ spike in emotions as Five remains motionless and devoid of expression. It’s Vanya who approaches him, a gentle smile on her face. She reaches out her hand and places it on his arm. “The memo is for you, but what happens to one of us, affects all of us,” she explains. “We all know how much you cared about Dave. There’s no way we’re letting you do this on your own.”
She says it in a way that’s believable. She says it like it’s the truth. And he doesn’t think she’s lying, because she’s not, but she doesn’t understand.
He’s not sure any of them understands.
He can still hear the gunfire, the hail of bullets. He can still smell the blood and death. When he closes his eyes, Dave still gurgles one last time, sightless eyes turned up to the gray sky.
He swallows, trying to steady himself. He can feel himself shaking, his whole body trembling. “Then you know why I have to do this,” he says. “You know why I have to look into his -- his -- Dave’s death.”
The words get stuck in his throat, and he fumbles through them. It almost physically hurts to speak them, and Klaus doesn’t know why he hasn’t gotten high as a kite since coming back. It is the only logical conclusion, but here he is, stone cold sober and scared out of his damn mind.
“Even if it is a trap?” Diego asks quietly.
Klaus laughs again, and this time it’s sharp. “I don’t give a shit about a trap,” Klaus says. “I mean, why else have I been training? What else is this all for?”
His siblings fall quiet, and Klaus can see that they want to object, but they’re not sure how. Maybe they don’t know on what grounds to land their objection. Maybe they’re scared that objections will be met with further resistance. Maybe they’re all just cowards who have no idea what they’re talking about.
He hates them, sometimes. He hates them irrationally. He hates them in a way that he can’t hate them but he has to hate them because they can never understand. It’s not their fault. It’s not their fault that Klaus opened a briefcase. It’s not their fault that he fell in love. It’s not their fault Dave died.
It can’t be there fault.
He has to remember that.
Loss is a hard thing when you have no one to blame. Fate is a cruel master because it leaves you devoid of control. People want a scapegoat; Klaus wants a scapegoat. Something to wrap his fingers around and squeeze the life out of. All he’s left with is a void he can’t fully understand.
That’s why he hasn’t summoned Dave.
He’s so busy trying to live.
He knows that talking to Dave will be a death sentence.
It’s a good thing, then, that Klaus isn’t scared of dead people anymore.
It’s Five who speaks finally, breaking the silence that threatens to consume them. His voice is soft; oddly restrained. “Just be careful,” he advises, though almost cautiously. He looks uncertain. “It’s a trap, sure, but it’s probably not the kind of trap you think it is.”
The ambiguity is too much. Klaus shakes his head. “It’s about Dave,” he replies in short order. “Nothing else matters.”
-o-
He’s clear in his determination at least, but the research does not come naturally. With his powers, he hasn’t even had to try. He just starts levitating one morning and they’re off. It’s not that he thought everything in life would be that easy or anything.
Or maybe he did.
Sometimes Klaus is an idiot.
Sometimes he really is selfish, too.
That said, this is the first time in his life he’s actually had to apply himself. Like, work above and beyond. Go the extra mile and whatever.
The point is that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a difference. Klaus is still coming up with nothing.
He starts in public records. Allison has to show him where the library is, and then she has to take him inside and show him how it works. He spends hours, days after that, reading everything he can. He finds Dave’s obituary, but it doesn’t say much, and he uses the information about his family to make a few calls.
His parents are dead, but his sister is alive. She is pretty nice, even when some weird guy comes round asking about how her brother died several decades earlier. She’s nice, sure, but she doesn’t know much. “He took a shot to the chest,” she says, pointing to her own. She’s gesturing in the wrong place, but Klaus bites his tongue. “They said he didn’t feel any pain.”
That’s a flat out lie. Dave felt lots of pain; Klaus still feels it.
Klaus clears his throat to keep himself on track. “Did they find out who did it?”
She blinks at him, clearly confused by the question. “It was in battle,” she says slowly. “What more do you need to know?”
A lot, apparently. Klaus gives up on the sister. He gives up on the brother and the maternal aunt in the nursing home. Finally, he turns to Dave’s commanding officer, and it’s a good thing they don’t meet in person because Klaus isn’t sure if he wants the man to recognize him or not. As it is, the commanding officer doesn’t know shit. He doesn’t even remember who Dave Katz is and it’s only when Klaus tells him the location of the battle that he has any recollection of anything.
“That wasn’t a battle,” the man objects. “That was hardly a skirmish.”
Klaus was there so he’s not sure he agrees, but he elects to say nothing.
“But we lost men all the time,” the officer continues. “Some went quick; some went slow. I’m sorry about your friend Dave Katz, but that’s just the nature of war.”
His breath catches, stuck in his throat. He feels like he could choke. “That’s not much consolation, is it?” he asks. “For the men who fought.”
There is a dry, sad chuckle over the line. “We were all pawns, no matter what side we were on or what rank we held. We lived or died as part of some master plan I’ll never understand. That’s the story you’re looking for, son. You’re looking for the story of who’s pulling the strings. It’s not who dies in the trenches. It’s who signs off on the order to be there at all. And with that, I’m afraid I’m no use whatsoever.”
-o-
“I don’t get it,” Klaus vents. He throws down his papers in front of him on the table. He’s been keeping haphazard notes in an unintelligible scrawl. It makes him feel organized and productive even if he can’t read them. “No one knows anything about Dave’s death. No one.”
It’s late. Or it’s early. Klaus can’t tell. He knows that the others are asleep, but Five isn’t. Five keeps odd hours. He figures this has something to do with the apocalypse but he doesn’t much feel like asking right now.
And Five probably wouldn’t feel like sharing anyway. He’s not exactly big into sharing his feelings. Or, you know, having feelings. He’s never envied Five for that. Not before. Maybe now.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Klaus moans, slumping down with his hand propping up his cheek. “I have no idea what they want me to find.”
Five lets out a breath and sits back in his chair. There is a coffee cup in front of him, but Klaus suddenly suspects it’s empty. “You’re putting too much into this.”
“Um, it’s Dave’s death,” Klaus reminds him. He raises his eyebrows. “Remember him?”
“I know who Dave is, and I know you cared about him,” Five reiterates, and now he sounds vaguely perturbed. “But the point is that you remember him, too. All you have from him are memories. You need to recognize how much those memories matter. All the hows and whys -- if you cling to those too much, you’ll replace the memories. I’m not sure that’s what you want.”
“But what if he didn’t have to die?” Klaus says, and he sits up for this. “What if they’re telling the truth?”
Five shrugs. “And what if they are? Dave still died. A life spent in what-ifs isn’t going to get you anyway.”
“Uh, yeah,” Klaus says. “Says the guy who literally broke all the rules of time and space to change the fate of humanity.”
Five tips his head in acknowledgement. “So I know what I’m talking about,” he says. “That’s the part the Commission doesn’t understand. They look at time and space and think they can make simple predictions. Simple changes. But nothing is simple, and if I went on logic, I would have let the world burn. You can’t reduce life down to cause and effect. You can’t control the variables and expect to know the outcome.”
Klaus makes a face. “Then why did you do it?”
Five’s answer comes without hesitation. “For my family,” he says plainly. “I’ve done everything, ever since the day I skipped ahead to the apocalypse, for my family and nothing else.”
Klaus has to sit back a little, it’s such a frank answer. It’s said without emotion, but the emotion that underpins it is still the most overwhelming thing yet. He frowns and wets his lips. “Then I know what I have to do,” Klaus says.
He scoots back his chair and hurries from the room. Five doesn’t try to stop him.
It’s just as well.
Klaus wouldn’t have stopped now for anything.
-o-
He can’t do it in his bedroom, not with so much clutter and so many memories. He gets distracted there, and he thinks about hidden stashes of drugs he knows he’s cleared out already but might want to check just in case. He also can’t risk someone walking by. Sure, there are locks on the doors, but this is a house full of superheroes. He doesn’t pretend like a lock on a door means anything.
Klaus isn’t even sure he wants to do it in the mansion, though that’s the only place that makes sense. For all the distractions the mansion has to offer, it is also the only secure place. It’s one thing to have his siblings barge in on something this important and intimate. It’s entirely another to have some random stranger come by. He’s not sure he wants to explain to them that it’s okay, he talks to dead people all the time, and that’s assuming he doesn’t start levitating by accident and people start calling 911.
Therefore, after some exhausting internal debates, he selects a moderately secure room in a relatively unused portion of the mansion. He’s never been here before. No, he’s probably been here before but he was probably high at the time so he doesn’t remember. At any rate, there’s nothing of any interest in the room, and there’s no sign of recent activity, so Klaus closes the door, opens a window to let out the musty smell and sits down in the middle.
He always hates this part. It seems forced and contrived. This is what people think when they call him the seance. They think it’s mystical and amazing and there’s chanting and flickering lights.
Really, Klaus just sits down, closes his eyes and starts going through the spirits. It’s more annoying than mystical. Most of the spirits at hand are not the ones he wants to talk to; they’re the needy ones, the ones who want closure and justice and whatever. He passes over Ben willfully, which isn’t easy or probably fair, but he meant it: this is his.
He wants to be alone.
He cycles through the spirits, muttering under his breath. He can feel his power thrumming in his veins, and it throbs in his head. He has to focus a lot to do this. It’s one thing to see dead people; it’s another to summon them. He figures he looks like he’s trying to take a hard shit more than anything else, which is another reason why he prefers privacy.
If he was good, he might know some secret words. He might come up with a pleasing incantation.
As it is, he mutters curses until the spirits fall away one by one by one.
Then, Klaus sees him.
The curses die in his throat.
His chest feels like it’s going to explode.
He smiles.
“Hey, Dave,” he says, like they’re running into each other in the mess tent. “Long time no see.”
-o-
Dave looks just like Klaus remembers him. His perfect smile, the familiar sloop in his easy gait. His arms are long, and his hair is trimmed short under his combat helmet. There’s still blood on his fatigues, but Dave smiles back.
“Klaus,” he says, like that’s a singular truth for him in his afterlife. Ghosts, Klaus has found, are single minded. They rarely want to talk about random things. They know what they’re about, and they don’t mince words. Dave says it again, more confidently still. “Klaus.”
It’s so much all at once. The emotions surge, building so much that his chest feels like it might actually explodes. It’s like the rush after taking something, the precarious tip of the greatest high ever. He feels it with exhilaration, and he’s almost lightheaded from it. He tingles, the desperate urge to reach out and grab Dave almost insurmountable. His eyes sting with what he can only assume is joy, even as he remembers that it wouldn’t do any good to grab him. He’s not concentrating enough to make Dave solid.
Even that thought is fleeting, and he doesn’t pretend like he’s going to get it under control any time soon. He’s not, okay? He’s just not, and he’s the experience is too heady to even care. He’s giddy and he’s breathless, and he thinks a thousand thoughts, mind filtering a thousand questions.
Are you okay?
What’s happened to you since the last time I saw you?
Are you scared?
Do you miss me as much as I miss you?
Can you say it again? Can you say you love me?
These are good questions, pressing questions. Questions Klaus has asked himself a hundred times, a thousand times, too many times. The questions that keep him awake at night. The questions that keep him restless when the others can sit idle. The questions.
But he remembers the memo, it’s blocky type print with his name taped on the outside. They had referred to him at David Katz, and Klaus fiddles with the dog tags as he tries not to cry.
The only question that comes out of his mouth is the one he came here to ask: “What happened when you died?”
Dave pauses, cocking his head. He looks a bit confused. “I crossed over from one life to the next,” he says, and he eyes Klaus critically. “That’s what everyone does, don’t they?”
Klaus shakes his head, because that’s not what he’s asking. “No, I mean when you were shot,” he says. “What happened when you were shot? I mean, I know you died, but how did it happen?”
This clarification does little to clarify anything. Dave simply seems more befuddled by this line of questioning. “Why? I don’t understand.”
Klaus wets his lips, and the headiness is tampered by frustration. He’s never been good at having a mission and sticking to it, but this one is his, damn it. It’s his and he needs to do this or he’ll never rest again. “It just matters,” he explains. “Trust me. It matters a lot.”
Dave seems to fade momentarily. He wrinkles his nose. “I don’t understand.”
“Just tell me what you know,” Klaus asks. He demands. Why is he demanding? He wants to hug Dave, tell him he’s sorry, but the memo is more than a suggestion. It’s now a defining feature of his existence. He hasn’t realized it. He hasn’t realized how it’s consumed. He hasn’t realized it until he wants to shake Dave as much as he wants to hug him. “I need to know everything that happened, all the details leading up to the shot. I want to know where it came from, who fired it, everything.”
This is blunt at least, and Dave cannot misconstrue. He stands back on his heels, a little put off as he speaks. “I was there, with you, in the trenches. The battle was an unexpected skirmish; we weren’t ready. Our position was entirely defensive. I was laying down fire, trying to hold the line. One second I was scanning for the enemy. The next, my chest was on fire. I saw you, but it was too late. I was already dying. You held me. You made it easier to let go. You were there when it mattered.”
It’s a recollection that Klaus does not want to relive. His breathing stutters at it, and he wipes his hands unconsciously on his pants, as if the blood is still there. It takes his absolute concentration not to cry right then, and he focuses on what Dave isn’t saying. Klaus knows the horror of death. He just doesn’t know the context of why. “So you didn’t see anything? You didn’t see who shot you?”
Dave snorts a little. “Of course I saw the gunman,” he says. “I was checking the advancing enemy, just like I said. You always had this habit of ducking when we were under fire. I was worried it would get you killed. I wanted to check for threats.”
It’s not fair, that assessment. It’s not fair to think about Dave looking out for him. It’s not fair to think about how Dave loved him so much that he was willing to die.
Klaus blinks, forcing himself to focus, to maintain the connection. To remember the mission. His singular mission. “And?” he asks. “Who was it? Who killed you?”
He sounds desperate. No, that’s not it. He is desperate. He’s experienced decades of grief within months. He’s tried to process a lifetime of grief in a microscopic span. It’s a rawness he has not acknowledged, one he’s conveniently overlooked during his training. It’s one that has been fully realized with one simple memo from an enemy that wants him dead.
This is what he needs for closure.
This is what he needs for survival.
He’s never believed anything with as much confidence as he believes this.
All the questions he’s had, all the ones he knows he can’t answer, this one is suddenly within his reach. He can’t squander that now.
“Well, it’s not like I knew him,” Dave tells him, somewhat quizzical. “It was a warzone.”
Klaus feels his heart sink.
Dave shrugs, though, as if it’s inconsequential. “I did think it was odd, though. When I saw the guy.”
Eyes wide, Klaus latches onto his words with hope.
“Because he didn’t look like a soldier. He didn’t even look like the enemy,” Dave explains. “It was so weird. It was this white guy. He was old, or something. White hair, a trimmed little mustache. And he was wearing a suit -- like a proper suit you would wear to the office. It didn’t make any sense, but by the time I realized that, he’d already shot me.”
There’s the caveat. There’s the irregularity. This is the truth the Commission wants him to know, and he knows it now. He knows it, but he can’t understand it. Why would there be some little old man in a business suit standing on a battlefield? And why would said little old man randomly shoot an innocent person he doesn’t even know? That sounds like something the Commission would do, something Five might have done in his previous life.
The notion of it clicks. It settles. He’s not sure he understands it; he’s not sure he wants to.
He does, though.
Somewhere, inside him, he does.
It’s a recognition, a deep inherent familiarity.
There’s no such thing as coincidence when you’re a Hargreeves.
“Wait,” Klaus says, stammers. He’s not sure what to do and he’s vying for time to parse it out. “What did he do? What did he exactly do?”
When Dave speaks, Klaus doesn’t breathe. Honestly, he thinks he already knows the answer. He thinks -- he knows -- he’s known the answer all along. Maybe ESP is part of his powers; maybe his intuition is just that good. Maybe he saw it too, back when it happened, but he wasn’t able to process the overload of information.
Maybe he didn’t want to.
He doesn’t want to know.
But he’s asked the question, and Dave has never been anything but obliging.
“The guy showed up out of nowhere, like literally almost out of nowhere. He was professional, bored almost. Like he’d been doing it for years,” Dave explains, each word falling into place like the pieces of a puzzle Klaus can’t run from now. “He pulled the trigger, shrugged his shoulders and left like it was nothing. Like it was just another day at the office.”
Klaus knows what that looks like. He knows it because he’s seen it in his little brother, the psychotic 13 year old who can murder a room full of people and primly adjust his tie while walking away from the aftermath. He knows it because it’s the way Five talks about his time with the Commission, the plaintive way he can make a list of innocent people he has to kill for the greater good. It’s Five, who confesses nonchalantly to murder. Five, who reminds them that there are no good guys and bad guys because that’s the only thing someone who is a bad guy can say.
It’s Five who darts in and out of time.
It’s Five who treats murder and death and destruction like another day at the office.
Across all of heaven, across all of hell, across everything in between, it’s Five.
It’s Five.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
PART SEVENTEEN
PART EIGHTEEN
PART NINETEEN
PART TWENTY
SIX
Yeah, so, things are pretty weird these days.
First, like, Klaus is sober. Sober sober. Really, totally completely sober. He hasn’t felt this sober since he was 13, and he’s honestly not sure what to make of it. It’s just so weird, right? Surreal, even. Like, he knows he’s the same guy with the same eccentric taste in music and the same flamboyant personality. But he’s different, too. He’s got more focus now -- or, you know, the basic ability to focus, which is not something he’s ever had.
And that has changed everything.
Seriously, everything.
Klaus can be prone to hyperbole, but that’s not what this is. No, Klaus has an entirely new grasp on life. He understands things more; he understands himself in relation to those things more. Which is to say, in so many roundabout ways, he understands his powers.
Or he’s starting to.
Because his powers are dope, man. Talking to the dead has never seemed all that cool to him, but he can channel them now. They can manifest and do shit and it’s powerful. It feels weird, a little like he’s electrocuting himself in a bath of cold water with a rusty toaster, but the rush of adrenaline more than makes up for it.
It doesn’t stop there, either.
One morning Klaus randomly started to float. Another day, he was too lazy to pick up the television remote and it came right to him. Once, he’s pretty sure he changed channels with the power of his mind, and, like, he’s not even trying. These powers are coming to him naturally, like they’ve been lying latent and dormant all these years and they’re just ready to come out.
It’s all pretty nifty on a day to day basis when he can impress the hell out of his siblings.
Apparently, it’s even more useful in a fight.
Okay, Klaus isn’t going to lie.
He’s super useful.
When a bunch of bad guys descended on the mansion, there’s an inherent expectation that Klaus is still a liability. Luther is like, “Stay behind me!” And Diego’s all, “Klaus, you okay?”
But dude, Klaus is more than okay. He doesn’t need to stand behind anyone. He’s got this. He’s really, totally, completely got this.
He takes out a few guys all on his own. He lets Ben handle another few and the next thing he knows, he’s still standing when all is said and done. Considering that the last time people broke into the mansion, he’d wound up kidnapped, this is a dramatic turnaround.
Everyone is all somber because it’s an attack and oh no, it’s the Commission and is everyone okay and that chandelier needs to be fixed again and it cost several grand last time but holy shit, did they see him in action?
It’s cool!
Weird, sure, but weird in the absolutely most cool way imaginable. If Klaus had known that things could be like this, he might not have stayed high all those years. He should have faced the truth about who he was a long time ago. The truth has set him free!
Nothing is going to hold him back now, he decides with an air of exhilaration.
Nothing.
Then, Five hands him a slip of paper with his name on it. The little dude looks like he’s seen a ghost, and Klaus has the presence of mind to stop smiling like an idiot when he opens it. There is a message typed on it, simple and to the point.
Attention Klaus Hargreeves: Private David Katz did not have to die. The circumstances of his death have been deemed suspicious by our internal division.
He reads it and the smile doesn’t just fade. It falls off his face and his stomach bottoms out. He feels like he’s going to be sick.
He reads it again, and the feeling solidifies like ice in his stomach.
Looking up, Five is still staring at him, expression grave.
He looks back at the slip of paper, reading it a third time.
Apparently, he thinks numbly, things are about to get even weirder around here.
-o-
At some point, Five takes the paper back from him. Klaus allows this because why isn’t he going to allow it, and he’s still standing there, staring dumbly at his empty hands while the rest of his siblings read the memo.
“Are we sure it’s the Commission?” Vanya asks. “What if it’s a trick?”
“Who could mimic that?” Allison counters.
Diego grunts his disagreement. “Who would want to?”
Luther shakes his head, brow furrowed. “I think we have to assume the source is valid. The real question is what is the point of sending it?”
Five is strangely quiet, chewing on his bottom lip, apparently deep in thought.
“We can’t assume they have good intentions,” Ben offers.
“You think?” Diego retorts. “I’m pretty sure they’re not going to be offering us any favors any time soon.”
“Or it is a trick, like Vanya said,” Allison suggests. “Maybe they’re trying to set us up?”
“But how?” Vanya asks, sounding a little at a loss. “It’s not telling us to go anywhere. Just to look into it.”
“Which implies they know more about it,” Ben says.
Five finally gathers a little breath. “It’s safe to assume it’s probably the truth,” he says. “The Commission has no ethical objections to lying, especially if it is in preservation of the timeline, but most of the time it’s all about manipulating the truth. To recreate it in the most advantageous version to serve their particular ends.”
Luther is frowning deeply. It’s deep consternation, and for some reason, Klaus fights the inexplicable urge to laugh. It’s a memo about his dead boyfriend from the past, and Luther is experiencing consternation. Naturally. “Okay,” Luther says slowly, oblivious to Klaus’ irreverant humor. “So what would that mean here?”
Five just looks weary. He’s not surprised or upset, just exhausted. Like he’s expected this.
Well, not this. There’s no way Five could suspect that Klaus boyfriend from the past died under suspicious circumstances. Not even Five, in all his travels and calculations, could expect that.
But Five’s expected the Commission all this time. He’s been saying it for weeks, and it’s not that Klaus hasn’t believed him, it’s just that some threats are too existential. Klaus is simply concerned with getting through the day without falling off the proverbial wagon. Worrying about potential threats before they are realized -- well, that’s what Five’s here for.
“It means,” Five says, and he doesn’t quite sound exasperated. He’s not annoyed, for once. He’s just tired. Like he hasn’t had his morning coffee. Or like coffee is no longer enough. “That they have a motive for sending this. The answers we find, whatever they may be, are the ones they want us to find.”
Klaus finally gets it. He understands the joke now. He knows what’s so damn funny. He shakes his head and laughs, hoarse and gruff. It’s strangled in his throat. “But there’s no us,” he interjects, and he doesn’t realize how full his eyes are of tears until he blinks and one slips down his cheek. “This memo is for me, remember? Not us. Me.”
They’ve always accused Klaus of being selfish, and Klaus has always accepted that with minimal objections. He’s never much cared mostly because he’s been self invested. There’s a difference, he thinks. They think he’s doing stuff just because he doesn’t care about the rest of them. He does stuff because he’s worried he’s going to lose his mind otherwise.
His control has been better since getting clean and saving the world, but it’s silly to think he’s not still at risk. He can talk to dead people all day long, but he’s not sure he’s ready to face the one ghost he actually loves more than life itself.
Luther looks like he’s slapped him, and Diego seems to be balling his fists as if Klaus is provoking a fight. He’s not, but Allison seems to situate herself between them just in case. Ben flickers with Klaus’ spike in emotions as Five remains motionless and devoid of expression. It’s Vanya who approaches him, a gentle smile on her face. She reaches out her hand and places it on his arm. “The memo is for you, but what happens to one of us, affects all of us,” she explains. “We all know how much you cared about Dave. There’s no way we’re letting you do this on your own.”
She says it in a way that’s believable. She says it like it’s the truth. And he doesn’t think she’s lying, because she’s not, but she doesn’t understand.
He’s not sure any of them understands.
He can still hear the gunfire, the hail of bullets. He can still smell the blood and death. When he closes his eyes, Dave still gurgles one last time, sightless eyes turned up to the gray sky.
He swallows, trying to steady himself. He can feel himself shaking, his whole body trembling. “Then you know why I have to do this,” he says. “You know why I have to look into his -- his -- Dave’s death.”
The words get stuck in his throat, and he fumbles through them. It almost physically hurts to speak them, and Klaus doesn’t know why he hasn’t gotten high as a kite since coming back. It is the only logical conclusion, but here he is, stone cold sober and scared out of his damn mind.
“Even if it is a trap?” Diego asks quietly.
Klaus laughs again, and this time it’s sharp. “I don’t give a shit about a trap,” Klaus says. “I mean, why else have I been training? What else is this all for?”
His siblings fall quiet, and Klaus can see that they want to object, but they’re not sure how. Maybe they don’t know on what grounds to land their objection. Maybe they’re scared that objections will be met with further resistance. Maybe they’re all just cowards who have no idea what they’re talking about.
He hates them, sometimes. He hates them irrationally. He hates them in a way that he can’t hate them but he has to hate them because they can never understand. It’s not their fault. It’s not their fault that Klaus opened a briefcase. It’s not their fault that he fell in love. It’s not their fault Dave died.
It can’t be there fault.
He has to remember that.
Loss is a hard thing when you have no one to blame. Fate is a cruel master because it leaves you devoid of control. People want a scapegoat; Klaus wants a scapegoat. Something to wrap his fingers around and squeeze the life out of. All he’s left with is a void he can’t fully understand.
That’s why he hasn’t summoned Dave.
He’s so busy trying to live.
He knows that talking to Dave will be a death sentence.
It’s a good thing, then, that Klaus isn’t scared of dead people anymore.
It’s Five who speaks finally, breaking the silence that threatens to consume them. His voice is soft; oddly restrained. “Just be careful,” he advises, though almost cautiously. He looks uncertain. “It’s a trap, sure, but it’s probably not the kind of trap you think it is.”
The ambiguity is too much. Klaus shakes his head. “It’s about Dave,” he replies in short order. “Nothing else matters.”
-o-
He’s clear in his determination at least, but the research does not come naturally. With his powers, he hasn’t even had to try. He just starts levitating one morning and they’re off. It’s not that he thought everything in life would be that easy or anything.
Or maybe he did.
Sometimes Klaus is an idiot.
Sometimes he really is selfish, too.
That said, this is the first time in his life he’s actually had to apply himself. Like, work above and beyond. Go the extra mile and whatever.
The point is that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a difference. Klaus is still coming up with nothing.
He starts in public records. Allison has to show him where the library is, and then she has to take him inside and show him how it works. He spends hours, days after that, reading everything he can. He finds Dave’s obituary, but it doesn’t say much, and he uses the information about his family to make a few calls.
His parents are dead, but his sister is alive. She is pretty nice, even when some weird guy comes round asking about how her brother died several decades earlier. She’s nice, sure, but she doesn’t know much. “He took a shot to the chest,” she says, pointing to her own. She’s gesturing in the wrong place, but Klaus bites his tongue. “They said he didn’t feel any pain.”
That’s a flat out lie. Dave felt lots of pain; Klaus still feels it.
Klaus clears his throat to keep himself on track. “Did they find out who did it?”
She blinks at him, clearly confused by the question. “It was in battle,” she says slowly. “What more do you need to know?”
A lot, apparently. Klaus gives up on the sister. He gives up on the brother and the maternal aunt in the nursing home. Finally, he turns to Dave’s commanding officer, and it’s a good thing they don’t meet in person because Klaus isn’t sure if he wants the man to recognize him or not. As it is, the commanding officer doesn’t know shit. He doesn’t even remember who Dave Katz is and it’s only when Klaus tells him the location of the battle that he has any recollection of anything.
“That wasn’t a battle,” the man objects. “That was hardly a skirmish.”
Klaus was there so he’s not sure he agrees, but he elects to say nothing.
“But we lost men all the time,” the officer continues. “Some went quick; some went slow. I’m sorry about your friend Dave Katz, but that’s just the nature of war.”
His breath catches, stuck in his throat. He feels like he could choke. “That’s not much consolation, is it?” he asks. “For the men who fought.”
There is a dry, sad chuckle over the line. “We were all pawns, no matter what side we were on or what rank we held. We lived or died as part of some master plan I’ll never understand. That’s the story you’re looking for, son. You’re looking for the story of who’s pulling the strings. It’s not who dies in the trenches. It’s who signs off on the order to be there at all. And with that, I’m afraid I’m no use whatsoever.”
-o-
“I don’t get it,” Klaus vents. He throws down his papers in front of him on the table. He’s been keeping haphazard notes in an unintelligible scrawl. It makes him feel organized and productive even if he can’t read them. “No one knows anything about Dave’s death. No one.”
It’s late. Or it’s early. Klaus can’t tell. He knows that the others are asleep, but Five isn’t. Five keeps odd hours. He figures this has something to do with the apocalypse but he doesn’t much feel like asking right now.
And Five probably wouldn’t feel like sharing anyway. He’s not exactly big into sharing his feelings. Or, you know, having feelings. He’s never envied Five for that. Not before. Maybe now.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Klaus moans, slumping down with his hand propping up his cheek. “I have no idea what they want me to find.”
Five lets out a breath and sits back in his chair. There is a coffee cup in front of him, but Klaus suddenly suspects it’s empty. “You’re putting too much into this.”
“Um, it’s Dave’s death,” Klaus reminds him. He raises his eyebrows. “Remember him?”
“I know who Dave is, and I know you cared about him,” Five reiterates, and now he sounds vaguely perturbed. “But the point is that you remember him, too. All you have from him are memories. You need to recognize how much those memories matter. All the hows and whys -- if you cling to those too much, you’ll replace the memories. I’m not sure that’s what you want.”
“But what if he didn’t have to die?” Klaus says, and he sits up for this. “What if they’re telling the truth?”
Five shrugs. “And what if they are? Dave still died. A life spent in what-ifs isn’t going to get you anyway.”
“Uh, yeah,” Klaus says. “Says the guy who literally broke all the rules of time and space to change the fate of humanity.”
Five tips his head in acknowledgement. “So I know what I’m talking about,” he says. “That’s the part the Commission doesn’t understand. They look at time and space and think they can make simple predictions. Simple changes. But nothing is simple, and if I went on logic, I would have let the world burn. You can’t reduce life down to cause and effect. You can’t control the variables and expect to know the outcome.”
Klaus makes a face. “Then why did you do it?”
Five’s answer comes without hesitation. “For my family,” he says plainly. “I’ve done everything, ever since the day I skipped ahead to the apocalypse, for my family and nothing else.”
Klaus has to sit back a little, it’s such a frank answer. It’s said without emotion, but the emotion that underpins it is still the most overwhelming thing yet. He frowns and wets his lips. “Then I know what I have to do,” Klaus says.
He scoots back his chair and hurries from the room. Five doesn’t try to stop him.
It’s just as well.
Klaus wouldn’t have stopped now for anything.
-o-
He can’t do it in his bedroom, not with so much clutter and so many memories. He gets distracted there, and he thinks about hidden stashes of drugs he knows he’s cleared out already but might want to check just in case. He also can’t risk someone walking by. Sure, there are locks on the doors, but this is a house full of superheroes. He doesn’t pretend like a lock on a door means anything.
Klaus isn’t even sure he wants to do it in the mansion, though that’s the only place that makes sense. For all the distractions the mansion has to offer, it is also the only secure place. It’s one thing to have his siblings barge in on something this important and intimate. It’s entirely another to have some random stranger come by. He’s not sure he wants to explain to them that it’s okay, he talks to dead people all the time, and that’s assuming he doesn’t start levitating by accident and people start calling 911.
Therefore, after some exhausting internal debates, he selects a moderately secure room in a relatively unused portion of the mansion. He’s never been here before. No, he’s probably been here before but he was probably high at the time so he doesn’t remember. At any rate, there’s nothing of any interest in the room, and there’s no sign of recent activity, so Klaus closes the door, opens a window to let out the musty smell and sits down in the middle.
He always hates this part. It seems forced and contrived. This is what people think when they call him the seance. They think it’s mystical and amazing and there’s chanting and flickering lights.
Really, Klaus just sits down, closes his eyes and starts going through the spirits. It’s more annoying than mystical. Most of the spirits at hand are not the ones he wants to talk to; they’re the needy ones, the ones who want closure and justice and whatever. He passes over Ben willfully, which isn’t easy or probably fair, but he meant it: this is his.
He wants to be alone.
He cycles through the spirits, muttering under his breath. He can feel his power thrumming in his veins, and it throbs in his head. He has to focus a lot to do this. It’s one thing to see dead people; it’s another to summon them. He figures he looks like he’s trying to take a hard shit more than anything else, which is another reason why he prefers privacy.
If he was good, he might know some secret words. He might come up with a pleasing incantation.
As it is, he mutters curses until the spirits fall away one by one by one.
Then, Klaus sees him.
The curses die in his throat.
His chest feels like it’s going to explode.
He smiles.
“Hey, Dave,” he says, like they’re running into each other in the mess tent. “Long time no see.”
-o-
Dave looks just like Klaus remembers him. His perfect smile, the familiar sloop in his easy gait. His arms are long, and his hair is trimmed short under his combat helmet. There’s still blood on his fatigues, but Dave smiles back.
“Klaus,” he says, like that’s a singular truth for him in his afterlife. Ghosts, Klaus has found, are single minded. They rarely want to talk about random things. They know what they’re about, and they don’t mince words. Dave says it again, more confidently still. “Klaus.”
It’s so much all at once. The emotions surge, building so much that his chest feels like it might actually explodes. It’s like the rush after taking something, the precarious tip of the greatest high ever. He feels it with exhilaration, and he’s almost lightheaded from it. He tingles, the desperate urge to reach out and grab Dave almost insurmountable. His eyes sting with what he can only assume is joy, even as he remembers that it wouldn’t do any good to grab him. He’s not concentrating enough to make Dave solid.
Even that thought is fleeting, and he doesn’t pretend like he’s going to get it under control any time soon. He’s not, okay? He’s just not, and he’s the experience is too heady to even care. He’s giddy and he’s breathless, and he thinks a thousand thoughts, mind filtering a thousand questions.
Are you okay?
What’s happened to you since the last time I saw you?
Are you scared?
Do you miss me as much as I miss you?
Can you say it again? Can you say you love me?
These are good questions, pressing questions. Questions Klaus has asked himself a hundred times, a thousand times, too many times. The questions that keep him awake at night. The questions that keep him restless when the others can sit idle. The questions.
But he remembers the memo, it’s blocky type print with his name taped on the outside. They had referred to him at David Katz, and Klaus fiddles with the dog tags as he tries not to cry.
The only question that comes out of his mouth is the one he came here to ask: “What happened when you died?”
Dave pauses, cocking his head. He looks a bit confused. “I crossed over from one life to the next,” he says, and he eyes Klaus critically. “That’s what everyone does, don’t they?”
Klaus shakes his head, because that’s not what he’s asking. “No, I mean when you were shot,” he says. “What happened when you were shot? I mean, I know you died, but how did it happen?”
This clarification does little to clarify anything. Dave simply seems more befuddled by this line of questioning. “Why? I don’t understand.”
Klaus wets his lips, and the headiness is tampered by frustration. He’s never been good at having a mission and sticking to it, but this one is his, damn it. It’s his and he needs to do this or he’ll never rest again. “It just matters,” he explains. “Trust me. It matters a lot.”
Dave seems to fade momentarily. He wrinkles his nose. “I don’t understand.”
“Just tell me what you know,” Klaus asks. He demands. Why is he demanding? He wants to hug Dave, tell him he’s sorry, but the memo is more than a suggestion. It’s now a defining feature of his existence. He hasn’t realized it. He hasn’t realized how it’s consumed. He hasn’t realized it until he wants to shake Dave as much as he wants to hug him. “I need to know everything that happened, all the details leading up to the shot. I want to know where it came from, who fired it, everything.”
This is blunt at least, and Dave cannot misconstrue. He stands back on his heels, a little put off as he speaks. “I was there, with you, in the trenches. The battle was an unexpected skirmish; we weren’t ready. Our position was entirely defensive. I was laying down fire, trying to hold the line. One second I was scanning for the enemy. The next, my chest was on fire. I saw you, but it was too late. I was already dying. You held me. You made it easier to let go. You were there when it mattered.”
It’s a recollection that Klaus does not want to relive. His breathing stutters at it, and he wipes his hands unconsciously on his pants, as if the blood is still there. It takes his absolute concentration not to cry right then, and he focuses on what Dave isn’t saying. Klaus knows the horror of death. He just doesn’t know the context of why. “So you didn’t see anything? You didn’t see who shot you?”
Dave snorts a little. “Of course I saw the gunman,” he says. “I was checking the advancing enemy, just like I said. You always had this habit of ducking when we were under fire. I was worried it would get you killed. I wanted to check for threats.”
It’s not fair, that assessment. It’s not fair to think about Dave looking out for him. It’s not fair to think about how Dave loved him so much that he was willing to die.
Klaus blinks, forcing himself to focus, to maintain the connection. To remember the mission. His singular mission. “And?” he asks. “Who was it? Who killed you?”
He sounds desperate. No, that’s not it. He is desperate. He’s experienced decades of grief within months. He’s tried to process a lifetime of grief in a microscopic span. It’s a rawness he has not acknowledged, one he’s conveniently overlooked during his training. It’s one that has been fully realized with one simple memo from an enemy that wants him dead.
This is what he needs for closure.
This is what he needs for survival.
He’s never believed anything with as much confidence as he believes this.
All the questions he’s had, all the ones he knows he can’t answer, this one is suddenly within his reach. He can’t squander that now.
“Well, it’s not like I knew him,” Dave tells him, somewhat quizzical. “It was a warzone.”
Klaus feels his heart sink.
Dave shrugs, though, as if it’s inconsequential. “I did think it was odd, though. When I saw the guy.”
Eyes wide, Klaus latches onto his words with hope.
“Because he didn’t look like a soldier. He didn’t even look like the enemy,” Dave explains. “It was so weird. It was this white guy. He was old, or something. White hair, a trimmed little mustache. And he was wearing a suit -- like a proper suit you would wear to the office. It didn’t make any sense, but by the time I realized that, he’d already shot me.”
There’s the caveat. There’s the irregularity. This is the truth the Commission wants him to know, and he knows it now. He knows it, but he can’t understand it. Why would there be some little old man in a business suit standing on a battlefield? And why would said little old man randomly shoot an innocent person he doesn’t even know? That sounds like something the Commission would do, something Five might have done in his previous life.
The notion of it clicks. It settles. He’s not sure he understands it; he’s not sure he wants to.
He does, though.
Somewhere, inside him, he does.
It’s a recognition, a deep inherent familiarity.
There’s no such thing as coincidence when you’re a Hargreeves.
“Wait,” Klaus says, stammers. He’s not sure what to do and he’s vying for time to parse it out. “What did he do? What did he exactly do?”
When Dave speaks, Klaus doesn’t breathe. Honestly, he thinks he already knows the answer. He thinks -- he knows -- he’s known the answer all along. Maybe ESP is part of his powers; maybe his intuition is just that good. Maybe he saw it too, back when it happened, but he wasn’t able to process the overload of information.
Maybe he didn’t want to.
He doesn’t want to know.
But he’s asked the question, and Dave has never been anything but obliging.
“The guy showed up out of nowhere, like literally almost out of nowhere. He was professional, bored almost. Like he’d been doing it for years,” Dave explains, each word falling into place like the pieces of a puzzle Klaus can’t run from now. “He pulled the trigger, shrugged his shoulders and left like it was nothing. Like it was just another day at the office.”
Klaus knows what that looks like. He knows it because he’s seen it in his little brother, the psychotic 13 year old who can murder a room full of people and primly adjust his tie while walking away from the aftermath. He knows it because it’s the way Five talks about his time with the Commission, the plaintive way he can make a list of innocent people he has to kill for the greater good. It’s Five, who confesses nonchalantly to murder. Five, who reminds them that there are no good guys and bad guys because that’s the only thing someone who is a bad guy can say.
It’s Five who darts in and out of time.
It’s Five who treats murder and death and destruction like another day at the office.
Across all of heaven, across all of hell, across everything in between, it’s Five.
It’s Five.