Umbrella Academy fic: Changing All the Scenery (13/20)
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
THIRTEEN
Five has, accidentally, lost track of time.
Again.
It’s true, he has a habit of doing this, but this time it’s really not his fault. It’s not.
That’s what happens to you when you sustain a head injury.
Before being kidnapped off the street by a time traveler assassination agency.
After which, you are dragged against your will through time.
And finally housed in a dank, windowless prison cell for an undisclosed amount of time.
See?
It’s not his fault.
He does have a rough approximation of time, which he determines by the intervals of his own sleep and the seemingly routine feedings he is permitted. Whatever the Commission wants with him, they seem to be in no rush. This is the Commission, so time is something to be had in excess, and it is a tool Five knows the management likes to use to their advantage. After all, the Handler could have swept in when Five was 13, but instead she waited some 30 odd years. Why? Because she could.
It was to her advantage, anyway. At 13, he had been scared and a little frantic, but he hadn’t become desolate. He hadn’t lost the edge to his sanity. No, time chipped away at him, taking him bit by bit. Taking his presence of mind, his pride, his sense of propriety. She waited until he was primed for her usage, and such a distinction could only be made with the benefit of time.
No doubt, Five concludes quite quickly, that a similar tactic is being employed here. The Commission doesn’t take prisoners on a whim. If you mess with the timeline, they don’t try to rehabilitate you. They just kill you. Five’s never, not once in his years with the Commission, taken someone alive.
This means that his purpose here is not related explicitly to the timeline.
There could be loftier ambitions. It’s possible, he thinks, that they still want to recruit him. This seems foolish, considering his past interactions and all the failed attempts at a partnership. Yet, the Commission believes itself to be immune to error. Not on a practical level, but from a wider perspective. The Commission believes that time can fix everything, even problematic agents with a vast potential to be effective in the field. He doubts the Commission has ever had a subject that could not be bent to its will. It is an incorrect assumption in this case, but the Commission also has plenty of hubris to go around.
This could also be something much less loftier. It could be that the Commission has run the numbers and decided the Five is not able to be rehabilitated to their desires. Killing him would be easier, but the Commission is an organization concerned with time on a microscopic level. It is inherently a petty sort of business. He wouldn’t put revenge out of the question.
At any rate, Five is being treated on a near humane level. He is provided with food regularly, and he has access to something that resembles a toilet. The sink can’t be plugged to hold water, but he is given new clothes and washcloths on a semi-regular basis. However, he is not allowed to leave his small cell, and the guards do not interact with him. There is clearly some sort of dampening field on the cell itself; Five’s powers are completely ineffective.
In all, Five thinks he’s doing a remarkably good job. He isn’t sure exactly how much time has passed -- it could be morning, it could be night, he has no way to know based on the naked bulb that is never turned off above his head -- but he has estimated that several weeks has passed. Given the amount of time he’s lost in this process, he suspects it’s been about a month, give or take, since he was last in 2019.
He thinks about 2019 a lot, actually. More than his present year, whatever that may be. He likes to think that in 2019 Klaus goes home, gets clean and lives happily ever after. He likes to think that 2020 is the year the Umbrella Academy formally gets back to work again. He estimates that 2021 will be the year that Allison will get joint custody of her daughter. In 2022, Diego will complete his coursework at the police academy and then make a point not to join the force just because he can. It will be 2023 when Luther proposes to Allison. Finally, in 2024, Vanya will write a sequel to her book with her siblings’ blessing.
In this timeline, the one Five has calculated based on probabilities in his head, it is 2025 when Klaus falls in love again. He doesn’t forgive Five for any of this, but by 2025, Five is clearly not coming home. It takes six years for Klaus to forget how much it hurts. It takes that long for him to move on. Those years of absence, and Klaus will finally rebound.
Ultimately, it’s idle speculation, and Five knows it.
He doesn’t know what year it is.
But, according to his calculations, 2025 sounds like the best year of all.
Of course, he has no idea if he’ll be alive at that point, but he finds that’s really not very important at all.
-o-
Nearly humane conditions, Five has declared.
It’s still life in a small cell with scant food. He exercises by walking in circles; he eats every last crumb and still feels himself growing thinner. Sometimes, the hard floor and lack of a bed make it hard to sleep. Other times, he’s so exhausted by the simple demand of existing that all he can do is sleep.
Still, he makes every attempt to remain pragmatic about this. Some might fancy it to be optimism, but that’s not it. Five is not optimistic about his circumstance. He knows he’s slipping faster than he likes to think. His stamina is diminishing. His mental acuity has been compromised. He’s talking to himself, and he’s so hungry that he wants to eat the washcloth.
It is pragmatic, however, to look at his incarceration and something better than the worst case scenario. He takes some pleasure in this notion. This idea that he is here, in this miserable place, is okay because he thinks in 2019, Klaus is with his siblings. He thinks about how 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 is all the same to him. His siblings are happy in this indistinct future; they’re thriving.
It’s the one gift Five can still give them.
The one thing he can’t screw up.
His absence.
-o-
To be fair, Five doesn’t screw it up.
That doesn’t make him feel much better, though.
It doesn’t make him feel better at all.
One day, the door to his cell opens. Five is taken aback, and he expects to see the Handler, smirking at him. Instead, he stares at Klaus.
Klaus, wide eyed and gaping, stares back.
He’s shoved inside, and he stumbles in. The door slams shut behind him with a rattle.
So much for Five’s last gift, then.
Suddenly, 2019 seems far too far away.
-o-
The reunion actually goes better than their last one.
Five is on the floor, huddled against the far wall. Klaus is standing dumbly just behind the locked door. “What the hell are you doing here?” Five asks, even though he’s already going over the possibilities in his head, assigning logical probability values as he goes.
“What the hell are you doing here?” is Klaus cry in return. He’s incredulous, which is absolutely ridiculous, since Five’s position is decidedly self evident.
Five rolls his eyes, and it is more work than he remembers it being. “I’m a prisoner asshole.”
“So am I!” Klaus returns, and his tone is a mixture of indignant and shocked.
It’s such a strain, working with amateurs. “Yeah,” Five says. “I can see that.”
The shortness in his voice seems to bring Klaus to his knees. He beseeches Five. “Then why are you yelling at me?”
“Because, moron,” Five says. He points at the door as if it proves some kind of point. “I gave you everything I could so you could go back to your life. You’re supposed to be back in 2019, and I don’t pretend that it’s some kind of perfect happily ever after, but it wasn’t supposed to be captivity.”
Klaus looks offended somehow, like Five has managed to land some kind of low blow. “Well, you’re supposed to be back in 2019, too.”
“It doesn’t matter where I am,” Five says tersely. “I was merely supposed to be anywhere that wasn’t with you. That was the choice you made.”
Klaus shakes his head. “I didn’t make this choice,” he protests. He gestures to the cell. “There’s no way I made this choice for either of us.”
Five is almost too tired for this. He lacks the stamina. “I gave you the option. You could kill me or I could leave forever,” he says. “Given that I’m still alive, I assumed you picked the latter.”
Klaus struggles to look indignant, but his brow creases with concern. “I was barely sober at the time.”
“Sober enough to use your powers,” Five counters. “I count that as consent.”
“Well, fine!” Klaus says, throwing his hands up. “But you leaving meant staying out of the house for awhile! Not leaving the century!”
Five can imagine that this seems like a very valid point for Klaus. But Klaus has an overly sentimental attachment to the concept of time. It is not an attachment that Five shares. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, this was unintentional,” he mutters, sparing a glance at his surroundings.
“Oh, good,” Klaus says. “Because I thought you got kidnapped by the Commission, taken to the past and locked in a cell for kicks.”
Five makes his expression cool. “Well, why did you do it, then?”
The coolness of the answer only seems to infuriating Klaus. “I was looking for you!”
“Why?” Five asks because he honestly doesn’t quite know. The probabilities aren’t coming together; his mental acuity has suffered more than he’d realized.
“Because you disappeared!” Klaus all but explodes. “You were just gone! We couldn’t find you!”
Five’s look is skeptical now. “Again, that was sort of the point.”
Klaus blows out a breath, as if to regain some semblance of self control. “You know it doesn’t work that way, Five. Not in this family.”
“You made a choice, Klaus,” Five says. “After all I did to you, the least I could do was respect that choice.”
“That’s nice of you to choose to think about me now,” Klaus says. “You know, when it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re sober, aren’t you?” Five asks. “And I assume you’re home again?”
Klaus lets his mouth fall open but the words don’t come out. He stutters for a second. “Well, yeah--”
“So then it does matter,” Five says. He nods around to the room. “This? For me? Doesn’t mean anything. But for you to be sober, to be home -- it means a lot.”
Klaus crosses his arms over his chest and flops back sullenly against the concrete wall. “Sober, maybe. But I’m not home anymore, am I?”
Five presses his own mouth closed now. Klaus has a point.
Klaus, bastard that he is, knows it, too. “So how is that plan now, baby brother?” he asks, somehow sounding smug despite their current circumstances.
“I admit, this isn’t the outcome I’d planned,” he says. “We’re going to have to revise the plan a little. Improvise.”
“You mean like the time you revised the plan in Vietnam and killed the man I loved?” Klaus asks.
Five sighs. “That’s not how it was.”
“Yet, Dave still ended up dead,” Klaus says. “And you still pulled the trigger.”
“Then why are you here?” Five asks pointedly. “Why come here if you still want to talk about the past?”
“I don’t know!” Klaus says. He shrugs and makes a wide, helpless gesture. “I really don’t know!”
Five shakes his head. “Clearly, this is going to go really well.”
-o-
Five has low expectations.
And somehow, the reality still falls woefully short.
During their first few hours together, Five and Klaus attempt to review what they know. Five knows it’s possible that they are being surveilled, but he has not been able to find any form of active recording device in his cell since arriving here. He suspects that the Commission is audacious enough to assume there is no means of escape. They can’t expect him to have any significant intelligence to share in his isolation cell, which means that 24-7 observation would be tedious.
In other words, Five has run the odds in his head. They’ve got more to gain by openly discussing matters than they do to lose. It’s a worthwhile risk.
Of course, it would be more meaningful if Klaus wasn’t so intent on being pissed off the entire time.
They attempt to discuss what they know about the Commission’s presence in 2019 and their tracking of the family. They share stories of their respective abductions, relating all salient details with some degree of detail. It’s a meaningful process of information sharing that is completely hindered by Klaus ongoing commentary about Five’s moral failings.
To be fair, there are many such failings.
But rehashing said failings every two minutes has proven rather counterproductive toward anything resembling escape. Five learns that Klaus was abducted in the same location, and that there was no previous attempts at contact from the Commission. He has plenty of questions about possible surveillance tactics, but Klaus is too interested in telling Five how awful he is to yield further intelligence.
It goes pretty much like this.
“Do you remember anything, though?” Five presses. “The Commission can play the long game. They have agents who do nothing but observe, years, decades, their whole lives. You’d have to look for subtle signs.”
“Uh, yeah, I don’t remember anything in particular--”
“It could just be little things that seem strange,” Five says. “The daily oddities you take for granted. A postal worker coming at the wrong time. Girls Scouts selling cookies out of season.”
Klaus raises his eyebrows, utterly sanguine. “Siblings who travel through time and murder people you love?”
“Klaus--”
“I’m just saying.”
Which is to say that the lowest expectations are still needing to be fulfilled.
-o-
None of this is helped by the fact that this is still, technically, all Five’s fall. He’s keenly aware of that. Every jibe from Klaus is justified. And then some.
In fact, he finds himself suddenly grateful for the dampening field the Commission must be using. Klaus’ powers are inert the same as Five’s, which means that murder and assault are currently off the table.
However, after two full days of zero progress with Klaus, Five finds himself wondering if murder and assault would be the better option.
“But clearly the Commission had agents at that particular location,” Five stresses. “They’ve probably remapped the future. They knew we’d both be there.”
Klaus is lying on his back, eyes closed. He’s taken to captivity with a decided lack of enthusiasm. When Five tries to stay productive, Klaus seems to give up. It’s hard to tell if he’s being contrary on purpose or if it’s merely his nature. “Well, that’s the perk, right? Of knowing the future?”
“Or of engineering the future,” Five points out. “They clearly want something from us. They sent you that message to put us both here for a reason.”
Klaus cracks his eyes open. “Yeah, it sounds like you’re about to start blaming the Commission for the blood on your hands again.”
“No,” Five says, immediately defensive and trying not to show it. “It’s an observation--”
“And my observation is that you’re not a very good person,” Klaus says. He closes his eyes again. “So you don’t have any room to judge.”
Five has long since given up on trying to assuage these feelings of disdain that Klaus is harboring. Five does not resent them, but they are utterly counterpro\ductive. “No judging is involved,” he says tiredly. Because he is tired. A month of captivity has been draining. Two days under Klaus’ constant derision has made him feel like dying for the first time. “But if we’re going to get out of here--”
Klaus opens his eyes again. “Maybe you belong in here. Maybe this is, like, a temporal prison.”
“If it was just me, that theory would be plausible,” he says, refusing to be cowed. He has never been ashamed; it probably would have been easier if he was. Klaus would understand shame. Regret for the inevitability of what he cannot control is too abstract a comment for the rawness of his brother’s grief. “But why you?”
Klaus makes a face of annoyance. “Just another way you screwed me over,” he says. “Guilt by association.”
Five sighs. “Why did you come here, then?”
“I was dragged here--”
“No, why did you come after me?” Five clarifies, lips pursed. “If you hate me with that much vigor, then why bother?”
Klaus inhales, as if he’s got something to say. The words don’t come, and he clamps his mouth down. He’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know,” he says. “At this point, I honestly don’t. I just knew you had to come home. That’s all.”
“That’s why I went after you, too,” Five says. “That’s why I gave you that choice. I knew you needed to come home.”
“Super plan then, bro,” Klaus quips caustically.
“Well, who says it has to be done?” Five asks. “If we work together, we can get out of here.”
Klaus scoffs.
“I’m serious,” Five says. “The Commission is powerful, but it’s not impenetrable. But we need to work together.”
Klaus raises his eyebrows in doubt. “Why would I want to do that?”
“So you can go home,” Five says simply. He shrugs. “So we can both go home.”
Klaus is guarded now. “And you think that’s what you want?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I know that’s why you came.”
-o-
After another few days, Five is at his limit. He can take isolation. He can take neglect, abuse, all of it.
And it’s not even Klaus’ antagonism, because Five owes him that.
It’s just that Klaus is willing to be pissed at Five to the point that he’s willing to sacrifice his own happiness and freedom. Five is trying to be patient and understanding, but he has his limit.
Because he’s run the odds. If Klaus doesn’t get over his emotions and work with Five, then they’re going to die here. There’s a 96.5 percent chance of that. And if Five is going to die, then fine. He’s lived a long life. He’s done a lot of horrible things. He’s an acceptable loss.
But Klaus?
When his death is premature and pointless?
Five can’t abide by it.
He won’t.
After their meager meal is delivered one day, Five shoves the plate to Klaus. “You can have it all.”
Klaus, who is naturally as skinny as Five and just as resilient, eyes him uncertainly. “You think giving me extra food is absolution?”
“No,” he says. “But I think starving myself is a much easier way to give you what you want.”
“I never said I wanted you dead,” Klaus says.
“You didn’t?” Five asks. “Then why do you steadfastly refuse to come up with an escape plan? Because every day we don’t talk about how we’re going to get out of here is another day you have condemn me to death. We might as well get it over with, then.”
Klaus stares at him, momentarily dumbfounded. “That’s not -- I don’t--”
Five waits, undeterred.
Klaus fumbles a little more. “That’s not fair!”
“I know,” Five says. “It’s not fair that you should squander your own potential escape just to spite me of out of mine.”
“No, that’s not it,” Klaus says. “I’m not -- that’s not -- that’s not what I’m trying to do?”
Five shrugs his shoulders. “Sure seems like it.”
Klaus sighs, shoving the food back at him crossly. “I want to get out of here,” he says. “I even want you to get out of here.”
“Okay,” Five says. “So what’s the problem?”
Klaus looks at him like Five might be crazy. For the record, Five might actually be crazy. But that’s not actually relevant right now. “The problem? Shit, Five. You killed Five. I mean, can you even grasp that? What that did to me?”
“I know what death can do to a person,” Five says. “I did end up in the apocalypse. I found your bodies. I buried you. I know what it does to a person.”
“Yeah, and it made you talk to mannequins, write math problems on every surface and become a hitman,” Klaus says. He scoffs. “I think I’m handling this pretty well, all things considered.”
“Look,” Five says, sitting forward intently now. “You need time. You need space. Maybe you need all the time and space, and I’m willing to respect that. But those things are luxuries right now. You can’t have any time or space if we die in here. This isn’t about you forgiving me. This is about doing the pragmatic thing.”
Klaus’s eyes look wet. “Well, maybe I want it to be about forgiving you. I mean -- come on, Five. You haven’t even said that you’re sorry. How do you expect me to deal with that? With any of it? I need closure!”
This is not an answer that Five should be surprised to hear, but it’s not one he’s especially prepared for. He has calculated this conversation to elicit a path forward, but he’s failed to anticipate the emotional burden tied to it. He’s underprepared for this, but he’s also very well aware that there is no other way around it.
Klaus needs closure.
Five, despite being the murderer and aggressor, has to provide it. It’s a tall task, no doubt. But Five can’t shy away from it.
Wetting his lips, he rapidly goes through the possibilities. Offering an apology might be the easiest way forward, but it would be disingenuous. Five is a murderer, and a good one, but he’s not inherently a gifted liar. He finds them too tedious.
Besides, there’s a high probability that a lie wouldn’t work. Klaus isn’t stupid, and he’s very sober at the moment. He’s going to know when Five’s talking nonsense, and it’s going to lead them right back to the place they started.
Five also knows the risk of attempting a justification. It’s a fine line to provide explanations, but he thinks it’s probably the best way forward, based on his quick calculations.
“I can’t apologize for something that I did knowingly and willingly,” Five ventures. “At the time, I had very straightforward reasons. I know that what I did makes me a terrible person -- not just for Dave, but for every person I killed -- but it was necessary at the time. I had no other way home. That’s not an excuse -- you can’t excuse something like that -- but it is what it is. I can’t change it.”
Klaus lets out a ragged breath that sounds like a stifled sob. “And what, then? You had no choice? So I just have to forgive you?”
“No,” Five says. “I’m not seeking your forgiveness.”
“Then, I hate to tell you this, but you’re doing a piss poor job of apologizing, brother dear,” Klaus says with a wince of affectation.
“Why?” Five asks, shaking his head at the nonsensical nature of it all. “I mean, there’s nothing I can say that will make it right. An apology will always be incomplete and inadequate.”
He’s speaking plainly, at least.
Klaus doesn’t seem to get it, though. “So you aren’t even going to try?”
Five breathes out through his nose. Okay, so maybe he’s not getting it either. This is a disconnect of communication, words that have been lost by the disjointed decades. “I am trying.”
Klaus’ brow wrinkles. “Trying to what exactly? Because, honestly, I don’t know anymore.”
“To do the right thing this time,” Five says, and he gestures toward his brother. “I have wronged you, and no matter what the reasons are and whether or not those reasons are valid, I still wronged you in the most profound way. It is an inherent violation of trust that diminishes any possible trust and affection you might have shown me in your life. More than that, I know I am a constant reminder of your loss, a constant reminder of betrayal. As long as I’m around, you are unable to move on. I’m trying to leave you alone because it is what’s best for you.”
Klaus stares at him, mouth hanging open a little. Being completely frank in his intentions had not entirely been part of Five’s plan, but he will admit that his planning has been compromised as of late. All odds and calculations aside, sooner or later, he was going to have to tell the bald, naked truth and live with those consequences.
It’s a truth that Klaus has probably known implicitly, but he’s managed a disassociation between his conscious mind and his subconscious one. In other words, Klaus wants to hate and forgive Five simultaneously. He has never truly thought to understand him.
And why would he? He fell in love with a soldier, as a soldier. Five knows how that works. He knows that soldiers have to be trained for something beyond apathy. It’s not indifference that allows a soldier to kill. It’s the expressed understanding that the other side is your enemy. That makes them a less-than. You can’t humanize them; you can’t understand them. The complexity of human nature would make war impossible if you couldn’t shut it down.
Five was no longer a brother. He was not a simple enemy.
That was the truth they were grappling to make sense of when his secret identity had been revealed. Could Five be the brother? Could he be the enemy? Or is he something in between?
“You’re an asshole,” Klaus breathes finally, and there’s an air of disbelief in his voice. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Yes,” Five says, nodding readily. He’s too tired for this. He’s too old. “And that’s why I’m trying to do the right thing!”
“Now,” Klaus says with a scoff. He looks around their confined space, the pitiful plate of food between them. “Of all times, now. This is the time you think about having a conscience. Not in Vietnam. Not when it counts. But now?”
Five flattens his lips and shakes his head. “In Vietnam, I was doing whatever I had to do to get back to 2019. To get back to a time that mattered. I had to sacrifice everything for that, Klaus. Not just your boyfriend.”
Klaus recoils a little. “Screw you.”
“Exactly,” Five says, clutching upon the point. He pushes the plate toward Klaus again. “Make the choice, Klaus. Screw me.”
Klaus looks like he’s about to cry. His jaw tightens and he pushes the plate back. “You think the apocalypse is some kind of endgame.”
Five tilts his head. “Well, it kind of is.”
“So that makes it an infinite scapegoat? You can do anything if it means stopping the apocalypse?”
Klaus is actively blinking back tears again, and Five swallows back any kind of impulsive reply. Klaus had been right about a lot of things, about Five and the apocalypse and the addiction that threatened to consume him. It’s hard to explain that sort of thing, the way the isolation changed him, the way the bleakness colored him. Three decades is a long time.
He wets his lips and looks Klaus in the eye. “I was desperate,” he admits. “I was desperate enough to do anything, no questions asked.”
“You should have asked,” Klaus says. “That’s what you do, that’s what good people do. You have boundaries, Five. You know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You just should have asked.”
Now, Five’s lips curl up into a painfully wry smile. “You think I don’t know that?”
Klaus looks on the verge of being distraught. It’s a common look for him these days; Five wishes he could say it was all due to the extended captivity. “Then why? Why didn’t you just ask?”
What’s ironic is that this is Klaus’ point. This the point he’d made, the truth he’d drawn out. Addiction is an illness with a consistent underlying pathology. It simply manifests in different ways. Denial is not a luxury either of them can indulge any longer. “The same reason you took drugs all those years,” Five replies flatly. “To survive.”
Klaus bristles. He sits back and shakes his head. “It’s not the same.”
To that, Five smiles slightly. “I’m not saying that it is,” he says. “But I think we have more in common than either of us wants to admit.”
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
THIRTEEN
Five has, accidentally, lost track of time.
Again.
It’s true, he has a habit of doing this, but this time it’s really not his fault. It’s not.
That’s what happens to you when you sustain a head injury.
Before being kidnapped off the street by a time traveler assassination agency.
After which, you are dragged against your will through time.
And finally housed in a dank, windowless prison cell for an undisclosed amount of time.
See?
It’s not his fault.
He does have a rough approximation of time, which he determines by the intervals of his own sleep and the seemingly routine feedings he is permitted. Whatever the Commission wants with him, they seem to be in no rush. This is the Commission, so time is something to be had in excess, and it is a tool Five knows the management likes to use to their advantage. After all, the Handler could have swept in when Five was 13, but instead she waited some 30 odd years. Why? Because she could.
It was to her advantage, anyway. At 13, he had been scared and a little frantic, but he hadn’t become desolate. He hadn’t lost the edge to his sanity. No, time chipped away at him, taking him bit by bit. Taking his presence of mind, his pride, his sense of propriety. She waited until he was primed for her usage, and such a distinction could only be made with the benefit of time.
No doubt, Five concludes quite quickly, that a similar tactic is being employed here. The Commission doesn’t take prisoners on a whim. If you mess with the timeline, they don’t try to rehabilitate you. They just kill you. Five’s never, not once in his years with the Commission, taken someone alive.
This means that his purpose here is not related explicitly to the timeline.
There could be loftier ambitions. It’s possible, he thinks, that they still want to recruit him. This seems foolish, considering his past interactions and all the failed attempts at a partnership. Yet, the Commission believes itself to be immune to error. Not on a practical level, but from a wider perspective. The Commission believes that time can fix everything, even problematic agents with a vast potential to be effective in the field. He doubts the Commission has ever had a subject that could not be bent to its will. It is an incorrect assumption in this case, but the Commission also has plenty of hubris to go around.
This could also be something much less loftier. It could be that the Commission has run the numbers and decided the Five is not able to be rehabilitated to their desires. Killing him would be easier, but the Commission is an organization concerned with time on a microscopic level. It is inherently a petty sort of business. He wouldn’t put revenge out of the question.
At any rate, Five is being treated on a near humane level. He is provided with food regularly, and he has access to something that resembles a toilet. The sink can’t be plugged to hold water, but he is given new clothes and washcloths on a semi-regular basis. However, he is not allowed to leave his small cell, and the guards do not interact with him. There is clearly some sort of dampening field on the cell itself; Five’s powers are completely ineffective.
In all, Five thinks he’s doing a remarkably good job. He isn’t sure exactly how much time has passed -- it could be morning, it could be night, he has no way to know based on the naked bulb that is never turned off above his head -- but he has estimated that several weeks has passed. Given the amount of time he’s lost in this process, he suspects it’s been about a month, give or take, since he was last in 2019.
He thinks about 2019 a lot, actually. More than his present year, whatever that may be. He likes to think that in 2019 Klaus goes home, gets clean and lives happily ever after. He likes to think that 2020 is the year the Umbrella Academy formally gets back to work again. He estimates that 2021 will be the year that Allison will get joint custody of her daughter. In 2022, Diego will complete his coursework at the police academy and then make a point not to join the force just because he can. It will be 2023 when Luther proposes to Allison. Finally, in 2024, Vanya will write a sequel to her book with her siblings’ blessing.
In this timeline, the one Five has calculated based on probabilities in his head, it is 2025 when Klaus falls in love again. He doesn’t forgive Five for any of this, but by 2025, Five is clearly not coming home. It takes six years for Klaus to forget how much it hurts. It takes that long for him to move on. Those years of absence, and Klaus will finally rebound.
Ultimately, it’s idle speculation, and Five knows it.
He doesn’t know what year it is.
But, according to his calculations, 2025 sounds like the best year of all.
Of course, he has no idea if he’ll be alive at that point, but he finds that’s really not very important at all.
-o-
Nearly humane conditions, Five has declared.
It’s still life in a small cell with scant food. He exercises by walking in circles; he eats every last crumb and still feels himself growing thinner. Sometimes, the hard floor and lack of a bed make it hard to sleep. Other times, he’s so exhausted by the simple demand of existing that all he can do is sleep.
Still, he makes every attempt to remain pragmatic about this. Some might fancy it to be optimism, but that’s not it. Five is not optimistic about his circumstance. He knows he’s slipping faster than he likes to think. His stamina is diminishing. His mental acuity has been compromised. He’s talking to himself, and he’s so hungry that he wants to eat the washcloth.
It is pragmatic, however, to look at his incarceration and something better than the worst case scenario. He takes some pleasure in this notion. This idea that he is here, in this miserable place, is okay because he thinks in 2019, Klaus is with his siblings. He thinks about how 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 is all the same to him. His siblings are happy in this indistinct future; they’re thriving.
It’s the one gift Five can still give them.
The one thing he can’t screw up.
His absence.
-o-
To be fair, Five doesn’t screw it up.
That doesn’t make him feel much better, though.
It doesn’t make him feel better at all.
One day, the door to his cell opens. Five is taken aback, and he expects to see the Handler, smirking at him. Instead, he stares at Klaus.
Klaus, wide eyed and gaping, stares back.
He’s shoved inside, and he stumbles in. The door slams shut behind him with a rattle.
So much for Five’s last gift, then.
Suddenly, 2019 seems far too far away.
-o-
The reunion actually goes better than their last one.
Five is on the floor, huddled against the far wall. Klaus is standing dumbly just behind the locked door. “What the hell are you doing here?” Five asks, even though he’s already going over the possibilities in his head, assigning logical probability values as he goes.
“What the hell are you doing here?” is Klaus cry in return. He’s incredulous, which is absolutely ridiculous, since Five’s position is decidedly self evident.
Five rolls his eyes, and it is more work than he remembers it being. “I’m a prisoner asshole.”
“So am I!” Klaus returns, and his tone is a mixture of indignant and shocked.
It’s such a strain, working with amateurs. “Yeah,” Five says. “I can see that.”
The shortness in his voice seems to bring Klaus to his knees. He beseeches Five. “Then why are you yelling at me?”
“Because, moron,” Five says. He points at the door as if it proves some kind of point. “I gave you everything I could so you could go back to your life. You’re supposed to be back in 2019, and I don’t pretend that it’s some kind of perfect happily ever after, but it wasn’t supposed to be captivity.”
Klaus looks offended somehow, like Five has managed to land some kind of low blow. “Well, you’re supposed to be back in 2019, too.”
“It doesn’t matter where I am,” Five says tersely. “I was merely supposed to be anywhere that wasn’t with you. That was the choice you made.”
Klaus shakes his head. “I didn’t make this choice,” he protests. He gestures to the cell. “There’s no way I made this choice for either of us.”
Five is almost too tired for this. He lacks the stamina. “I gave you the option. You could kill me or I could leave forever,” he says. “Given that I’m still alive, I assumed you picked the latter.”
Klaus struggles to look indignant, but his brow creases with concern. “I was barely sober at the time.”
“Sober enough to use your powers,” Five counters. “I count that as consent.”
“Well, fine!” Klaus says, throwing his hands up. “But you leaving meant staying out of the house for awhile! Not leaving the century!”
Five can imagine that this seems like a very valid point for Klaus. But Klaus has an overly sentimental attachment to the concept of time. It is not an attachment that Five shares. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, this was unintentional,” he mutters, sparing a glance at his surroundings.
“Oh, good,” Klaus says. “Because I thought you got kidnapped by the Commission, taken to the past and locked in a cell for kicks.”
Five makes his expression cool. “Well, why did you do it, then?”
The coolness of the answer only seems to infuriating Klaus. “I was looking for you!”
“Why?” Five asks because he honestly doesn’t quite know. The probabilities aren’t coming together; his mental acuity has suffered more than he’d realized.
“Because you disappeared!” Klaus all but explodes. “You were just gone! We couldn’t find you!”
Five’s look is skeptical now. “Again, that was sort of the point.”
Klaus blows out a breath, as if to regain some semblance of self control. “You know it doesn’t work that way, Five. Not in this family.”
“You made a choice, Klaus,” Five says. “After all I did to you, the least I could do was respect that choice.”
“That’s nice of you to choose to think about me now,” Klaus says. “You know, when it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re sober, aren’t you?” Five asks. “And I assume you’re home again?”
Klaus lets his mouth fall open but the words don’t come out. He stutters for a second. “Well, yeah--”
“So then it does matter,” Five says. He nods around to the room. “This? For me? Doesn’t mean anything. But for you to be sober, to be home -- it means a lot.”
Klaus crosses his arms over his chest and flops back sullenly against the concrete wall. “Sober, maybe. But I’m not home anymore, am I?”
Five presses his own mouth closed now. Klaus has a point.
Klaus, bastard that he is, knows it, too. “So how is that plan now, baby brother?” he asks, somehow sounding smug despite their current circumstances.
“I admit, this isn’t the outcome I’d planned,” he says. “We’re going to have to revise the plan a little. Improvise.”
“You mean like the time you revised the plan in Vietnam and killed the man I loved?” Klaus asks.
Five sighs. “That’s not how it was.”
“Yet, Dave still ended up dead,” Klaus says. “And you still pulled the trigger.”
“Then why are you here?” Five asks pointedly. “Why come here if you still want to talk about the past?”
“I don’t know!” Klaus says. He shrugs and makes a wide, helpless gesture. “I really don’t know!”
Five shakes his head. “Clearly, this is going to go really well.”
-o-
Five has low expectations.
And somehow, the reality still falls woefully short.
During their first few hours together, Five and Klaus attempt to review what they know. Five knows it’s possible that they are being surveilled, but he has not been able to find any form of active recording device in his cell since arriving here. He suspects that the Commission is audacious enough to assume there is no means of escape. They can’t expect him to have any significant intelligence to share in his isolation cell, which means that 24-7 observation would be tedious.
In other words, Five has run the odds in his head. They’ve got more to gain by openly discussing matters than they do to lose. It’s a worthwhile risk.
Of course, it would be more meaningful if Klaus wasn’t so intent on being pissed off the entire time.
They attempt to discuss what they know about the Commission’s presence in 2019 and their tracking of the family. They share stories of their respective abductions, relating all salient details with some degree of detail. It’s a meaningful process of information sharing that is completely hindered by Klaus ongoing commentary about Five’s moral failings.
To be fair, there are many such failings.
But rehashing said failings every two minutes has proven rather counterproductive toward anything resembling escape. Five learns that Klaus was abducted in the same location, and that there was no previous attempts at contact from the Commission. He has plenty of questions about possible surveillance tactics, but Klaus is too interested in telling Five how awful he is to yield further intelligence.
It goes pretty much like this.
“Do you remember anything, though?” Five presses. “The Commission can play the long game. They have agents who do nothing but observe, years, decades, their whole lives. You’d have to look for subtle signs.”
“Uh, yeah, I don’t remember anything in particular--”
“It could just be little things that seem strange,” Five says. “The daily oddities you take for granted. A postal worker coming at the wrong time. Girls Scouts selling cookies out of season.”
Klaus raises his eyebrows, utterly sanguine. “Siblings who travel through time and murder people you love?”
“Klaus--”
“I’m just saying.”
Which is to say that the lowest expectations are still needing to be fulfilled.
-o-
None of this is helped by the fact that this is still, technically, all Five’s fall. He’s keenly aware of that. Every jibe from Klaus is justified. And then some.
In fact, he finds himself suddenly grateful for the dampening field the Commission must be using. Klaus’ powers are inert the same as Five’s, which means that murder and assault are currently off the table.
However, after two full days of zero progress with Klaus, Five finds himself wondering if murder and assault would be the better option.
“But clearly the Commission had agents at that particular location,” Five stresses. “They’ve probably remapped the future. They knew we’d both be there.”
Klaus is lying on his back, eyes closed. He’s taken to captivity with a decided lack of enthusiasm. When Five tries to stay productive, Klaus seems to give up. It’s hard to tell if he’s being contrary on purpose or if it’s merely his nature. “Well, that’s the perk, right? Of knowing the future?”
“Or of engineering the future,” Five points out. “They clearly want something from us. They sent you that message to put us both here for a reason.”
Klaus cracks his eyes open. “Yeah, it sounds like you’re about to start blaming the Commission for the blood on your hands again.”
“No,” Five says, immediately defensive and trying not to show it. “It’s an observation--”
“And my observation is that you’re not a very good person,” Klaus says. He closes his eyes again. “So you don’t have any room to judge.”
Five has long since given up on trying to assuage these feelings of disdain that Klaus is harboring. Five does not resent them, but they are utterly counterpro\ductive. “No judging is involved,” he says tiredly. Because he is tired. A month of captivity has been draining. Two days under Klaus’ constant derision has made him feel like dying for the first time. “But if we’re going to get out of here--”
Klaus opens his eyes again. “Maybe you belong in here. Maybe this is, like, a temporal prison.”
“If it was just me, that theory would be plausible,” he says, refusing to be cowed. He has never been ashamed; it probably would have been easier if he was. Klaus would understand shame. Regret for the inevitability of what he cannot control is too abstract a comment for the rawness of his brother’s grief. “But why you?”
Klaus makes a face of annoyance. “Just another way you screwed me over,” he says. “Guilt by association.”
Five sighs. “Why did you come here, then?”
“I was dragged here--”
“No, why did you come after me?” Five clarifies, lips pursed. “If you hate me with that much vigor, then why bother?”
Klaus inhales, as if he’s got something to say. The words don’t come, and he clamps his mouth down. He’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know,” he says. “At this point, I honestly don’t. I just knew you had to come home. That’s all.”
“That’s why I went after you, too,” Five says. “That’s why I gave you that choice. I knew you needed to come home.”
“Super plan then, bro,” Klaus quips caustically.
“Well, who says it has to be done?” Five asks. “If we work together, we can get out of here.”
Klaus scoffs.
“I’m serious,” Five says. “The Commission is powerful, but it’s not impenetrable. But we need to work together.”
Klaus raises his eyebrows in doubt. “Why would I want to do that?”
“So you can go home,” Five says simply. He shrugs. “So we can both go home.”
Klaus is guarded now. “And you think that’s what you want?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I know that’s why you came.”
-o-
After another few days, Five is at his limit. He can take isolation. He can take neglect, abuse, all of it.
And it’s not even Klaus’ antagonism, because Five owes him that.
It’s just that Klaus is willing to be pissed at Five to the point that he’s willing to sacrifice his own happiness and freedom. Five is trying to be patient and understanding, but he has his limit.
Because he’s run the odds. If Klaus doesn’t get over his emotions and work with Five, then they’re going to die here. There’s a 96.5 percent chance of that. And if Five is going to die, then fine. He’s lived a long life. He’s done a lot of horrible things. He’s an acceptable loss.
But Klaus?
When his death is premature and pointless?
Five can’t abide by it.
He won’t.
After their meager meal is delivered one day, Five shoves the plate to Klaus. “You can have it all.”
Klaus, who is naturally as skinny as Five and just as resilient, eyes him uncertainly. “You think giving me extra food is absolution?”
“No,” he says. “But I think starving myself is a much easier way to give you what you want.”
“I never said I wanted you dead,” Klaus says.
“You didn’t?” Five asks. “Then why do you steadfastly refuse to come up with an escape plan? Because every day we don’t talk about how we’re going to get out of here is another day you have condemn me to death. We might as well get it over with, then.”
Klaus stares at him, momentarily dumbfounded. “That’s not -- I don’t--”
Five waits, undeterred.
Klaus fumbles a little more. “That’s not fair!”
“I know,” Five says. “It’s not fair that you should squander your own potential escape just to spite me of out of mine.”
“No, that’s not it,” Klaus says. “I’m not -- that’s not -- that’s not what I’m trying to do?”
Five shrugs his shoulders. “Sure seems like it.”
Klaus sighs, shoving the food back at him crossly. “I want to get out of here,” he says. “I even want you to get out of here.”
“Okay,” Five says. “So what’s the problem?”
Klaus looks at him like Five might be crazy. For the record, Five might actually be crazy. But that’s not actually relevant right now. “The problem? Shit, Five. You killed Five. I mean, can you even grasp that? What that did to me?”
“I know what death can do to a person,” Five says. “I did end up in the apocalypse. I found your bodies. I buried you. I know what it does to a person.”
“Yeah, and it made you talk to mannequins, write math problems on every surface and become a hitman,” Klaus says. He scoffs. “I think I’m handling this pretty well, all things considered.”
“Look,” Five says, sitting forward intently now. “You need time. You need space. Maybe you need all the time and space, and I’m willing to respect that. But those things are luxuries right now. You can’t have any time or space if we die in here. This isn’t about you forgiving me. This is about doing the pragmatic thing.”
Klaus’s eyes look wet. “Well, maybe I want it to be about forgiving you. I mean -- come on, Five. You haven’t even said that you’re sorry. How do you expect me to deal with that? With any of it? I need closure!”
This is not an answer that Five should be surprised to hear, but it’s not one he’s especially prepared for. He has calculated this conversation to elicit a path forward, but he’s failed to anticipate the emotional burden tied to it. He’s underprepared for this, but he’s also very well aware that there is no other way around it.
Klaus needs closure.
Five, despite being the murderer and aggressor, has to provide it. It’s a tall task, no doubt. But Five can’t shy away from it.
Wetting his lips, he rapidly goes through the possibilities. Offering an apology might be the easiest way forward, but it would be disingenuous. Five is a murderer, and a good one, but he’s not inherently a gifted liar. He finds them too tedious.
Besides, there’s a high probability that a lie wouldn’t work. Klaus isn’t stupid, and he’s very sober at the moment. He’s going to know when Five’s talking nonsense, and it’s going to lead them right back to the place they started.
Five also knows the risk of attempting a justification. It’s a fine line to provide explanations, but he thinks it’s probably the best way forward, based on his quick calculations.
“I can’t apologize for something that I did knowingly and willingly,” Five ventures. “At the time, I had very straightforward reasons. I know that what I did makes me a terrible person -- not just for Dave, but for every person I killed -- but it was necessary at the time. I had no other way home. That’s not an excuse -- you can’t excuse something like that -- but it is what it is. I can’t change it.”
Klaus lets out a ragged breath that sounds like a stifled sob. “And what, then? You had no choice? So I just have to forgive you?”
“No,” Five says. “I’m not seeking your forgiveness.”
“Then, I hate to tell you this, but you’re doing a piss poor job of apologizing, brother dear,” Klaus says with a wince of affectation.
“Why?” Five asks, shaking his head at the nonsensical nature of it all. “I mean, there’s nothing I can say that will make it right. An apology will always be incomplete and inadequate.”
He’s speaking plainly, at least.
Klaus doesn’t seem to get it, though. “So you aren’t even going to try?”
Five breathes out through his nose. Okay, so maybe he’s not getting it either. This is a disconnect of communication, words that have been lost by the disjointed decades. “I am trying.”
Klaus’ brow wrinkles. “Trying to what exactly? Because, honestly, I don’t know anymore.”
“To do the right thing this time,” Five says, and he gestures toward his brother. “I have wronged you, and no matter what the reasons are and whether or not those reasons are valid, I still wronged you in the most profound way. It is an inherent violation of trust that diminishes any possible trust and affection you might have shown me in your life. More than that, I know I am a constant reminder of your loss, a constant reminder of betrayal. As long as I’m around, you are unable to move on. I’m trying to leave you alone because it is what’s best for you.”
Klaus stares at him, mouth hanging open a little. Being completely frank in his intentions had not entirely been part of Five’s plan, but he will admit that his planning has been compromised as of late. All odds and calculations aside, sooner or later, he was going to have to tell the bald, naked truth and live with those consequences.
It’s a truth that Klaus has probably known implicitly, but he’s managed a disassociation between his conscious mind and his subconscious one. In other words, Klaus wants to hate and forgive Five simultaneously. He has never truly thought to understand him.
And why would he? He fell in love with a soldier, as a soldier. Five knows how that works. He knows that soldiers have to be trained for something beyond apathy. It’s not indifference that allows a soldier to kill. It’s the expressed understanding that the other side is your enemy. That makes them a less-than. You can’t humanize them; you can’t understand them. The complexity of human nature would make war impossible if you couldn’t shut it down.
Five was no longer a brother. He was not a simple enemy.
That was the truth they were grappling to make sense of when his secret identity had been revealed. Could Five be the brother? Could he be the enemy? Or is he something in between?
“You’re an asshole,” Klaus breathes finally, and there’s an air of disbelief in his voice. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Yes,” Five says, nodding readily. He’s too tired for this. He’s too old. “And that’s why I’m trying to do the right thing!”
“Now,” Klaus says with a scoff. He looks around their confined space, the pitiful plate of food between them. “Of all times, now. This is the time you think about having a conscience. Not in Vietnam. Not when it counts. But now?”
Five flattens his lips and shakes his head. “In Vietnam, I was doing whatever I had to do to get back to 2019. To get back to a time that mattered. I had to sacrifice everything for that, Klaus. Not just your boyfriend.”
Klaus recoils a little. “Screw you.”
“Exactly,” Five says, clutching upon the point. He pushes the plate toward Klaus again. “Make the choice, Klaus. Screw me.”
Klaus looks like he’s about to cry. His jaw tightens and he pushes the plate back. “You think the apocalypse is some kind of endgame.”
Five tilts his head. “Well, it kind of is.”
“So that makes it an infinite scapegoat? You can do anything if it means stopping the apocalypse?”
Klaus is actively blinking back tears again, and Five swallows back any kind of impulsive reply. Klaus had been right about a lot of things, about Five and the apocalypse and the addiction that threatened to consume him. It’s hard to explain that sort of thing, the way the isolation changed him, the way the bleakness colored him. Three decades is a long time.
He wets his lips and looks Klaus in the eye. “I was desperate,” he admits. “I was desperate enough to do anything, no questions asked.”
“You should have asked,” Klaus says. “That’s what you do, that’s what good people do. You have boundaries, Five. You know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You just should have asked.”
Now, Five’s lips curl up into a painfully wry smile. “You think I don’t know that?”
Klaus looks on the verge of being distraught. It’s a common look for him these days; Five wishes he could say it was all due to the extended captivity. “Then why? Why didn’t you just ask?”
What’s ironic is that this is Klaus’ point. This the point he’d made, the truth he’d drawn out. Addiction is an illness with a consistent underlying pathology. It simply manifests in different ways. Denial is not a luxury either of them can indulge any longer. “The same reason you took drugs all those years,” Five replies flatly. “To survive.”
Klaus bristles. He sits back and shakes his head. “It’s not the same.”
To that, Five smiles slightly. “I’m not saying that it is,” he says. “But I think we have more in common than either of us wants to admit.”