Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Five stumbled out of the elevator, wincing as his newly returned arm protested at being placed on the wall. The surface was rough, but cool in the night air, and he tried his best not to fall over as a headache suddenly split into his skull.

He blinked rapidly, dark spots clawing at his vision. The quite murmur of his sibling’s voices washed over him as he forced himself to breath. He vaguely registered his dead brother’s voice among them, and the tight coil of guilt that had been curled in his gut finally dissipated. Luther was alive. He was alive. Everything was fine.

An image flashed momentarily across his eyes. That…that was Ben. On a subway. Reading a…book? Sounds about right. He looked older? Maybe around 30?

He looks like Sparrow Ben, a part of his whispered, but Five ignored it. He had no doubt Sparrow  Ben had never looked that…relaxed in his life. Another throb of pain battered against his skull, and he bit down on the urge to moan. He hadn’t had a headache this bad since he woke up hung over in 2019.

Between one blink and the next, the vision disappeared, and Five found himself staring at the ground. He looked up and noticed all his siblings gathered around a pedestal. He tested his legs and was surprised to find that they didn’t immediately give out on him. Even more surprising was the lack of the headache, which had a few seconds ago, been threatening to split his skull in half.

Five gingerly walked over, and gently nudged Diego to the side. His brother gave him a look, but he ignored it. It took him a few goes to comprehend what exactly the plaque said.

Obsidian Memorial Park

Graciously donated by Sir Reginald Hargreeves

This 1st Day of October 1989

Obsidian Park. That meant the hotel was gone. He did it.

Five glanced around, they were indeed in a park. He frowned, there was someone missing. Where was Allison?

“I got to show Sloane! Wh…Where’s Sloane?” Luther asked, glancing around. He sounded happy, and Five was glad someone was after what had just happened.

He turned to his brother and finally noticed what he had been gushing about. Luther, though still tall, was no where as big as he had been. The reset must have also given him back his body, just like it had given Five his arm.

“I haven’t felt this good in years…” Klaus stretched out his long gangly arms.

“Does anyone know where the hell we are?!” Spar…Ben questioned. Five opened his mouth to respond, but Lila beat him to it.

“The hotel. Or…at least this is where it use to be.”

“I…I think the old man did it.”

Five forced himself to speak, his voice grating on his already aching throat. The screaming from the Marigold extraction had not been pleasant. “I think he reset the universe.” It was the only explanation.

“Sloane?! Sloane!! Hey! – ”

Luther grabbed him by the lapel and demanded, “I don’t care about any resets, alright. I want my wife back. Where is she Five?”

Five looked up to see his brother, expression stormy and set. He honestly had no idea where Sloane was, maybe it was because she was a Sparrow? But Ben was here…He internally sighed, another problem he’d have to fix later no doubt.

“Glad you’re alive, but please take your hand off me.”

“Not until you give me an answer.” Luther used his Number One voice. Something that Five vaguely remembered from their childhood. He recalled Luther had tried to use the same voice on his siblings during the past apocalypses, with little results. Now it seems he was intent on using it on Five.

A surge of annoyance washed through Five. Where had this determination when the fate of the world was at stake? Where was it when he needed them?

“Okay, screw this.” He instinctively made the calculation and pulled. Or tried to. He was still in Luther’s grasp. He tried to reach for the familiar buzz of energy that had occupied his veins but found…nothing. Five looked at his siblings, trying not to panic.

“Somethings wrong.”

“Your right somethings wrong, you’re about to get your ass kicked!” Five barely heard Luther, an overwhelming need to move suddenly tore through him. He struggled against his brother’s hold, but he quickly realised it would do him not good but tear his jumper.

“Yeah! Kick his arse!” Diego, the idiot.

“No you moron, my power. I can’t blink.”

He forced himself to say the words. That was the reality. His power was gone. He couldn’t blink. Luther hadn’t released him but would soon enough.

His other siblings were also trying to access their powers, but Five knew nothing would come of it. The machine Reginald used must have drained them all of their powers.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! How do we get them back you idiots!?”

If he wasn’t mistaken, Ben sounded as broken up about the whole situation as he did. His brother was just worse at hiding it. Another difference between this Ben and their Ben. Their Ben would have been ecstatic to lose their powers.

“I got…gotta go find my wife.” Luther slowly inched away from the group, and for once Five couldn’t muster up the energy to care. None of them had powers. There was no apocalypse. And Five just wanted to sleep for a week straight. 

“No! Luther you can’t go! You were dead five minutes ago…your fragileeeeee. I gotta go after him.”

“No…no! Kalus! Wait!” He didn’t bother looking. He knew what was happening, the same thing that happened every time.

“I’m out bitches!” There goes Ben.

“Oh guys, come on. We should stick together so we can figure this out!”

Oh Viktor, he had no idea how much he was asking. Not even if the world depended on them. Not even.

“What are we supposed to do?”

Five looked up to see Diego and Lila, staring at each other, hands clasped.

“Live our lives.”

Diego and Lila left, hand in hand. All the remained was him and Viktor. They briefly met eyes, and Five shook his head. He was tired. Maybe…maybe this was the break he had been looking for.

He turned and walked away into this new timeline. Perhaps things would turn out better this time.

…

Who was he kidding? Might as well enjoy the break until the next apocalypse roles into town…

Chapter Text

Five didn’t know what to expect when he had barged into his Sir Reginald Hargreeves’s house looking for answers. It had only been a month since he and his siblings had arrived in this new timeline, but he already knew that a few things were quite different.

First of all, it seemed dear old dad was the head of some ruling elite class. Along with his wife, Abigail.

Second, there was no mention of the Umbrella or Sparrow Academy anywhere. He hoped that meant he and his siblings didn’t exist in this reality before, otherwise they may get another kugelblitz on their hands. But so far, after a month, the world was still intact.

Thirdly, it seemed that all technology was older, like…1990s, or 2000s. Even though it was 2019. It reminded him of the Commission headquarters, but so far there had been no time travelling assassins out to kill him, so it was safe to assume they had also been reset so that they never existed, or that they had other, more pressing problems to deal with right now.

When he had decided to look for dear old dad, or Reggie, as some of his siblings had called him, Five decided to look for the most pompous house he could find. It didn’t take long, and after a three hour stake out, he spied Reggie and his wife driving in. He waited an appropriate fifteen minutes for the two to collect themselves after their stroll before he suck over, silently dodging the security guards and the occasional camera.

Five crouched behind some sort of bush, it had bright yellow flowers that struck a chord in him, but he couldn’t place them. Maybe he had seen them once in the apocalypse? No, they looked delicate, and would not doubt die in the harsh conditions he had grown up in. Five snuck a look through the window – why the hell would you have a window that showed nothing but a bush? – and saw that the room he was peering into was clear.

He shoved upwards, but unsurprisingly the window didn’t budge. He reached into his jacket pocket and quickly got to work opening the window the old fashion way. It had been more pathetic than he could admit, each time he had automatically reached for his powers, and found them gone. The wave of disappointment and sadness that washed over him, before he shook himself and shoved it all to the side. It wasn’t important. His powers were just a tool. Nothing more.

But they were ours, a small, quiet part of him mentioned. Perhaps, but now they were gone, end of story.

In the apocalypse, Five had re-learnt how to pick locks. He had been taught the basics thanks to dear old dad; however he rarely needed the skill.

Why would you need to pick locks if you had a teleporter on your team? Was his argument, which worked, until he realised that blinking into a potentially dangerous locked room could be the end of him.

So, he brushed up his skill.

Somehow, after about three days of searching, Five had managed to locate one of the old lock picking sets he and his siblings had been forced to train within the ruins of the Academy. Locks were easy to find, and he vaguely remembered being pleased at having retained the skill, even though he had stopped practising when he was ten.

Of course, while he worked for the Commission there had been little need to pick locks. With time to scout out locations and enough energy to blink, there had been little reason for petty tricks. Sometimes he would, just so a specific person could be framed, but for the most part he had not used his skill.

Until now.

The window latch opened with a quiet click and Five slipped inside. His thirteen-year-old body was small enough to enter with the window only half open, so once he got in, he quietly closed the window behind him.

Now that he was in the house, Five could appreciate how familiar everything felt. The interior was modern, of course, with tiled floors and carpet, however there was something achingly familiar about the books written in Greek on the nearby shelf or the strange pictures of alien landscapes on the walls.

It seemed Sir Reginald Hargreeves peculiar interior designing was universal.

A faint whisper of voices caught his ear, and Five instantly froze. He tilted his head to get a better angle. Two voices. One was certainly his father. The other…It was female, slightly older.

Abigail.

He hadn’t been able to find any news reports about her (the Internet barely existed) and it seemed Reginald tried to shield her from the press as much as possible. Five had to hold it to the old man, the Press tended to be brutal, and he could respect shielding loved ones from their blinding lights.

The voices flared up again, and Five decided it was time to make his dramatic entrance. He quickly walked around the furniture and paused just before the doorway which led out into a larger corridor. What if Dad didn’t remember him?

That…would be awkward to say the least. He ran a few calculations in his head, and realised there was no way Reginal Hargreeves would allow himself to forget such an important variable. Especially if it was in his best interest at keeping this world alive.

Five and his siblings were essentially walking Harbingers, wherever they went, the apocalypse followed. Well, wherever he went if he was being honest, the others managed to live the 60s for months, even years before he arrived. Bringing another apocalypse with them. Five shoved that thought aside, not wanting to dwell on it.

His shoes were soundless on the carpet, and he briskly walked out into another large room. This one seemed to be a sitting room of some sort, with two chairs facing away from him and a large white couch by the wall. The voices stopped as he entered the room. Both occupants turned towards him simultaneously.

“Hey Dad! Long time no see!”  He wasn’t actually sure how long it had been for his father since the reset, presumably also a month.

"Number Five. I have been expecting you." Five gave Abigail a small nod before turning back to the man who resembled his father. He put his hands in his pockets, adopting a causal stance. He hand grasped silently around a pen he had brought, just in case.

"Have you now? Why am I not surprised? Still paranoid, old man." As if he could say any different.

"Reggie, are you not going to introduce us?" Abigail's voice was soft, but Five could detect steel in her voice. 

His father bristled, and Five had to stop the surprise from creeping onto his face. Wasn't hard to work out who was pulling the strings in this marriage. 

"This is Number Five." 

There was a pause. Five looked meaningfully at his father, but the old man refused to meet his eyes and seemed to have no interest in saying any more. 

“You are the time traveller, aren’t you?”

A nod.

“Why are you here?”

Reginald’s voice was clipped, however he kept glancing over to his wife, as if fearing Five would attack her outright.

“I’m here for answers.”

“Fine. After that you will leave.”

“Reggie.”

“…Please sit.”

Please? Five thought as he moved past his father to sit on the white couch against the wall. Since when has their father ever said please?

Five studied the two once he sat, keeping on hand firmly on the pen. He still didn’t trust them, and politely turned down any drinks Abigail offered.

“What type of answers do you wish to know?”

He paused. “Hotel Oblivion. How much do you remember?”

“I know about the hotel, and the machine inside. I know that I was successful in restarting the universe, and around a month ago I woke up with a second set of memories about children I have never seen.”

“So you remember the Sparrows?”

“I believe that is that they called themselves.”

“Hardly, it’s what you named them. Just like you named us the Umbrella Academy.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Alternate version, I get it. Do the other Sparrow kids exist in this timeline?”

“As far as I am aware, they don’t. I managed to change a few things with hotel Oblivion, one such being my action of releasing the Marigold that created you in the first place.”

“Do you remember Allison braining you in the back of the head?”

“Marginally.”

“Also, you killed Luther with an alien claw. You’re not human, are you?” Five looked at Abigail who had been watching their conversation intently. “Both of you.”

Their father being an alien would explain some things. Like how he hadn’t apparently aged between 1960, and 2019. However, his lack of care did not seem to stem from being an alien, as he definitely cared about Abigail. Perhaps children were different to his species. Or perhaps he was a heartless bastard who only cared for a specific person.

Five tried his best to ignore the parallels.

“Yes, we are not of this world.”

Welp. Five leaned back, mind blank. It was one thing to heavily suspect, it was another entirely to have been confirmed. Who else knew? Luther, obviously. Klaus also, since apparently you could chat to each other once you were dead. Allison? Probably not.

They had all seen the less-than-human brains of their father when Allison had killed him, but – knowing his siblings – Five doubted any of them noticed.

“Huh. Suppose you’re going to blame your non-exist parenting skills on the fact that you’re not human?” Five pondered the question out loud, sarcasm skills on full display.

“No. My parenting skills have nothing to do with my other-worldly origins.”

“I’m very glad to see you don’t have any kids then.” He looked meaningfully at Abigail. “Your dear Reggie named us numbers. Our robot mother, Grace, gave the others their actual names.”

Abigail pressed her lips together tightly but said nothing. Five had the feeling that meant she agreed with him.

“You had no need for names, Number Five. You were trained to achieve a specific purpose, nothing more.”

“Saving the world? Please, we managed without you just fine.” Five said with an eye roll. His father raised an eyebrow.

“No. Not saving the world. Rewriting it.”

Five paused. Huh, turns out the old man was useful. “That’s the first I’ve heard of us rewriting the universe. Elaborate.”

Reginald clasped his hands together. Shoulders back. Head titled down in a very familiar, condescending manner.

Gone was the uncomfortable, paranoid old man. This Reginald knew exactly what he was talking about. This was the version Five saw when he was lecturing him and his siblings or giving mission briefs. Perhaps this time his father would say something worth listening to.

“Long ago on our planet, there was a legend of a base, fundamental particle that made up the universe as we know it. According to our myths, it was the power source for an ancient machine that had the ability to make and destroy entire timelines.”

“And in every myth, there is a grain of truth.”

“The Hotel Oblivion?”

“Yes, but not only was the weapon real. This fundamental particle also existed, and we, as scientists, were determined to discover it.”

“We called it Vesitium.” Abigail butted in. Five looked at her; her face was noticeably blank. “I was the head scientist on our world. It was my life’s work, trying to discover it’s secrets.”

“I’ll spare you the details, but after decades of work, Abigil managed to split this particle into two separate individual substances. Marigold, and Derango. While the Vesitium was quiet, essentially undetectable, neither of its two products were.”

“Together, the products were extraordinarily reactive. The first time they were split, Abigail was too close and…” Reginald trailed off, and his wife put a comforting hand on his. She turned to Five, and he could see the haunted look in her eyes.

“My organs started to deteriorate at a rapid pace. Reggie managed to delay the process…however I had no doubt I would die.”

“The rest of our planet did not care about her health or the warning we proposed. Instead, the project was continued. I tried my best to warn our government, but after five years, there was a global arms race and someone, somehow released majority of the Derango and Marigold.”

“It was then Reggie knew we had to leave. Our planet had discovered faster than light travel around two centuries ago, and with the world dying, no one noticed our escape.”

“After Abigail was injured, I started researching the legends of the Ancients. The ones who built the Hotel Oblivion. From what I could find, it mentioned Earth as being far enough from their home world, so that by the time anyone got there, they would have developed and matured enough to not only access the power source, but to use to responsibility.”

“From there, Reggie released the Marigold which impregnated your mothers. It was drawn to Earth, because that's where the entrance to the hotel was, and there was no Derango keeping it on our world.”

“Hold on,” Five interrupted, “I thought that the Derango and Marigold on your world had all been released?”

“It had, but by that stage, the later part of the reaction had started to occur, and neither was pure enough to hold the Marigold there.”

“I took a ship and landed in the USA around the 1800s. Our species live a lot longer than humans, so I had plenty of time. I set my self-up and waited until the Marigold arrived.”

“My body was housed on the moon, just encase of any apocalypses.”

“So you didn’t send Luther up there for nothing…”

“No, I sent him to guard the most important thing.”

“Too bad the Moon blew up in the original timeline.”

“…Yes. I…. I hadn’t predicted that.”

“Don’t worry, neither did we. Still, it was technically your fault. If Viktor had learned control and not had to deal with your brainwashing, we could have avoided this whole mess.”

“Perhaps you are right…”

Five looked incredulously at his father, no fucking way. The universe reset must have screwed with his brain because there was no fucking way Reginald Hargreeves said that. His father would rather let the universe end than admit he made a mistake. Five closed his eyes, took a deep breath and summarised what he thought his father was telling him.

“So, you’re saying that the thing that gave us our powers is one half of a fundamental particle that caused the destruction of your entire planet.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let me ask you this. In the hotel Oblivion when you had the power to rewrite the universe, why didn’t you rewrite it so that you never discovered the Vesitium in the first place? Or that Abigail never got the degenerative disease due to over exposure? Or that Vesitium didn’t actually exist?”

Five knew his voice was rising in volume – he had been trying to keep the yelling to a minimum –  but the sheer number of ways his father could have avoided any and all forms of the apocalypse he, personally, had been dealing with his entire life was astonishing. To be honest, out of his siblings, he had the least things to complain to their father about. It was still so frustrating, especially when the old man never even told them about any of this!

Reginald shook his head, voice sharp as Five remembered. “Impossible. You see, the Hotel Oblivion’s power source is not Marigold, it is Vesitium, presumably located in a host. Meaning – ”

“Meaning when you tried to power it only using Marigold, it was a miracle it had the power to even bring back Abigail, let alone an entire planet.” Five finished for him, brow furrowed in contemplation.

If Vesitium had the power to create a host, just like the Marigold had done with Five and his siblings, then it was highly likely the host would also have powers of some sort. And if what Reginald said was true…

“What about Derango. Can it create a host?”

“Yes. Very clever Number Five. It seemed my predictions were correct.” Five ignored the empty praise. His brain was working furiously, trying to scrape together and condense the information he had learned so he could tell his siblings later.

But something was bugging Five. If Marigold and Derango are the two sides of the same coin, that meant that Derango could also produce superpowered hosts. Not only that, but Abigail had mentioned that if Derango and Marigold interacted as particles they reacted explosively. Meaning if their hosts power’s interacted, what would the results be?

“What would happen if the powers from people who were the hosts of Derango and Marigold interacted?”

A thin smile appeared on Reginald’s face.

“An apocalypse.”

Well shit. Still, it’s not like he could have expected anything less.

“Are there any Derango hosts currently alive? Didn’t you release the Marigold from your home world?”

The smile faded, and Abigail took over. Her voice was steady, however Five could hear the underlying uncertainty.

“Reggie released the Marigold on our home world, and let it travel through the vacuum of space. However, he also had some Derango, albeit a lot less. When he heard news of the miraculous newly born children, he...he released the Derango in order for it to create a hosts of its own.”

“But why!” Five exploded, throwing his hands in the air. He resisted the urge to pace up and down, and instead just drummed his fingers on his knee at a rapid pace. His thoughts flooded through at top speed, and he spoke as if he was the last person alive on Earth.

“If he knew even one interaction between the Derango and Marigold hosts could trigger the end of the world, why would he…Oh my fucking god. You selfish bastard.”

Suddenly it all made sense. The Academy, the fact that their father had adopted them at all. He adopted seven super powered children. The exact number he needed to active the Hotel Oblivion.

“You knew, didn’t you? You knew that you would need seven hosts in order to active the Hotel. That’s why you created the Academy. You used it as an excuse for acquiring seven superpowered children and raising them to grow their powers. I bet the more we strengthened our powers, the purer Marigold we had. Isn’t that right?” He looked to Reginald, who had grown silent. Five kept going, this was the reason his…his sibling’s childhoods had been so messed up.

“And once you deemed us ready, you would have dragged us all to the Hotel, most likely with one or two unknown random people around our age, who also had unexplained births. Derango hosts. You would have made us go through the Guardians, and if one or two of us died, it would not have mattered since you had our replacements right there. That was your plan.”

Five looked up, expression tense and voice raw with what he had figured out.

“We were batteries. Nothing more than fruit you were waiting to ripen until we could be picked. All of this, just to bring Abigail back.”

He sat back with, fists clenched. Five knew he had meant nothing to his father, except as a warning to his siblings of what not to do. He knew the man didn’t care for him. But to risk both his life and every other human on the planet to save the person he loved?

Maybe it wasn’t surprising. Maybe it shouldn’t be. It seemed he and his father was cut from the same cloth, willing to do anything for the ones they loved. At least Five wasn’t such a dick about it…mostly.

“You are extraordinary, Number Five.”

Abigail’s quiet voice rang through the silence, and Five forced himself to meet her dull blue eyes. He gave another nod at the acknowledgement, but there was no feeling of happiness or accomplishment at finally figuring out Reginald’s motive.

“It does not matter now.” Five concluded. “All of us are powerless now thanks to the reset. Apocalypse fucking averted.” He slumped back on the couch in defeat. He got answers. Now what?

Could Five really live out in retirement like he had wanted to in the Sparrow Timeline? Is that even what he wanted?

All I want is my family to be able to live out a relatively normal life together, happy and safe. Was that really too much to ask? Five asked his question to the universe and didn’t bother waiting for a reply.

He stood, and Abigail stood with him. He gave her a funny look, but she just offered a smile. “I know you’ve had a hard time, Five. But I would like to offer you a proposition.”

Five’s paranoia immediately spiked. “What kind of proposition?” He asked sharply, however if Abigail was put off by his tone, she didn’t show it.

She glanced towards her husband, who wasn’t even looking at them, before explaining, “Your family is currently safe, and the world is currently stable. But I want to offer you a job that can help it stay that way.”

Fire raised an eyebrow and motioned for her to continue. It was true, that this timeline did seem stable for the most part, and Five was going to try his dam hardest to keep it that way.

Abigail took a deep breath, “I want to offer you a job in the CIA.”

That…was not what he had expected. He crossed his arms in front of him. “And why would I want that?”

“Well, from what Reggie has told me, you are a man of action. I doubt going back to school is high on your priority list, but I also cannot see you standing by if the world is at stake. My husband has connections, and from what I saw, you are definitely smart enough to climb the ranks.”

“I also look 13. Do you really think no one is going to question that?” Five spat back, without his powers, he was stuck looking 13. A nuisance, as it seemed no one bothered to take him seriously.

“The CIA do not ask many questions. And if you prove yourself to be an exceptional agent, I doubt they will complain.”

Without a doubt, Five would be exceptional. He could track, kill, and recon better than most agents, regardless of his age. Not only that, but he was proficient in maths and physics to a least a university level. After working for years at the Commission, the CIA would be a piece of cake.

And it’s not like he had any other plans. While his family had been busy making lives for themselves in both their first timeline, and the 60s, Five had been too busy trying to save them all.

Perhaps it was time he did something for himself. Well, for himself to keep his family out of another apocalypse, that is. They deserved a break. It wasn’t every day the world ended.

“Fine.”

He stuck out his head, trying not to think about whether this was a deal he was about to regret.

Abigail took him and shook his hand firmly. “Welcome to the CIA, Agent Five.”

Chapter Text

“So, when were you planning on telling me that you had the ability to mess with our memories?”

Five cornered his father as soon as the others were out of earshot. The buzz of spacetime hummed comfortingly under his skin, and Five couldn’t help but be calmed by its presence.

After six, long, boring years, it seemed apocalypse – o’clock was finally here.

Since little Grace’s birthday Five’s had to reunite with his family, got shot at, find a missing girl, accidentally wound up in another timeline, regained his powers, and finally learned how exactly Ben died.

Apparently, it had been their father all along.

He couldn’t help but wonder, what if he had stayed? What if his father had actually been helpful and Five had gained the ability to rewind whole minutes by the time he was 13? Would Ben still be alive? Would any of this mess had happened?

It had taken him a good two minutes to pull himself out of the what if scenarios that ran through his brain. What if…what if…what if…None of that mattered, because right now they had to find Ben or the entire world would, once again, be wiped out. And this time the Hotel Oblivion wasn’t an option.

The Hotel had completely disappeared. Five had checked around the park about a week after they’d emerged from it, but there was no sign that it had been there.

“I did not plan on it.”

Reginald’s voice brought him back to the present. This time, free from the social protocols, Five openly paced back and forth. This may be the last chance he had the chance to talk with his father for a while, since they all planned to head to the crime scene together. Five had no doubt they would split off afterwards after like they always did.

He clenched his fists, speaking openly. His siblings were off with Abigail, getting further acquainted. No one had a chance of overhearing them.

“So, from what I can tell, Jennifer was most likely a Derango host.” He looked to his father, who gave a single nod.

“And now she is missing, with Ben, who has powers.” Once again, he received a single nod. Five wasn’t going to ask where the jar of Marigold had come from, but he suspected it had come with Reginald from their home planet. One of the things their father had changed using the Hotel Oblivion.

It would also explain why their powers were also stronger once they had all consumed some of it, as it was now a lot more concentrated. His siblings now resembled closer to their Soviet Doomsday versions than their regular power.

Luther could fully take bullets, something he could never really do even with his ape body. Allison could Rumour without talking. Diego could fully manipulate air born projectiles.

And he…He could teleport to a train station that led to other timelines. Once again, would have been a very useful power to have about three apocalypses ago, but there was no point in dwelling on the past.

It also meant that in the original timeline, his father would have used Jennifer to power the Hotel Oblivion, along with whoever from the Umbrella Academy made it past the Guardians. Ben must have interacted with her too early, when their powers hadn’t been developed enough to face the Guardians, and Reginald had concluded that the risk of triggering the apocalypse together was far too high for them to both remain alive. 

Five turned to his father, expression grave.

“How long do we have?”

Reginald didn’t even stop to think. “Around three days I believe. Excess physical contact will speed up the process exponentially, we must hurry.” He must have done the calculations at some point before, there was no way he knew that off the top of the head.

Five huffed, usually they got a week, sometimes more. But three days! He had a feeling this time it was going to be close. A bone-tired weariness swept through him, and for a second, he just wished everything could just end. At least then he could finally rest.

The past six years had been a nice break; however they had done little to rejuvenate the little motivation he had for life as a whole. Sure, infiltrating and recon had been good at keep his eccentric, paranoid mind preoccupied, but it did next to nothing for giving him something to fight for.

Ever since the last apocalypse, Hell, even as earlier as the 60s, Five’s motivation had been starting to lapse. He had been ready to let the world burn when the Kugelblitz had threatened all of creation, and yet here they were, still alive and kicking.

“Why didn’t you just kill all the Derango hosts once you got Abigail back and the world reset?” Five groaned, frustrated and mentally exhausted. Once the host was dead, both Marigold and Derango dissipated back into the universe unless they were actively reacting with each other.

Reginald raised an eyebrow in his general direction, “I thought you of all people would appreciate letting her live, Number Five. After all, she was no danger until the you and your siblings decided to re-inject yourselves with Marigold.”

Five bit back a retort. His father wasn’t actually wrong.

At first, he had been glad to know his father hadn’t immediately put a bullet in all the current Derango hosts on the planet and allowed them to live their lives peacefully. However, this was back before when the world hadn’t been at stake. Now, a small part of him whispered that this situation could have all been avoided, if only Reginald had been the heartless bastard everyone thought he was.

Perhaps it had been Abigail’s influence that made him soft. She had seemed quiet last time Five had visited (on official business. It’s not like he liked hanging out with a version of his dead dad). His other siblings didn’t know about the meetings, and Five still hadn’t gotten around to telling them about the Vesitium and the Marigold.

Well, they would find out on their own, he thought. Five stopped and stared at the wall. He let the landscape of dark, underwater, kelp forest wash over him as he stayed in one place, focused on the painting.

“We have to kill her.” He stated.

“Yes.” 

Neither of their voices held any emotion in them. They were robotic, empty of emotion and empathy.

At least Reginald could blame it on not being human. Five, well, he could claim his time in the first Apocalypse affected him, he could also claim that his time at the Commission had certainly not helped matters. It seemed he was back to being an emotionless killer, it was said that the end of the world brought out the best in people.

But there was no other way to stop the apocalypse. The engineering of how to exact Derango and Marigold would take decades for even someone of Five’s calibre to work out, and even then, he would need help. There was not enough time.

A couple of spots appeared in his vision and Five blinked rapidly in order to remove them. Instead of dissipating, the spots grew until the only thing he could see was...Viktor. He was on some sort of stage, playing the violin. It looked like the Icarus Theatre. 

Thankfully there was no ominous white glow of Viktor's powers and instead, Five listened as the music started to swell, before finishing off with a rapid set of movements. As his bow stilled, and the song ended, Viktor looked up and the entire theatre erupted with applause. 

Someone came out from the side of the stage, a women that Five absently recognised as Sissy, but how? He glanced around and saw mobile phones being pulled out as the audience took photos of the duo on stage. Sissy and Viktor hugged, before they grabbed each other's hand and bowed. The vision blurred, and Five squinted at the front row of the audience, trying to make out anyone else familiar. 

He blinked, and the entire scene was gone, his vision back to normal. Five looked at his father, but Reginald was staring at a painting of an underwater landscape on a nearby wall. It was just like the vision he saw of Ben on the train, Five reasoned. He shoved the memory to the back of his mind, there were more important things to deal with right now. 

His father was here right now, and the apocalypse was mere days away, it was time they got to work. 

Another thought popped into his mind. This would be the last time they chattered in a while, so he might as well try and get as many answers as he could.

“Who are the Keepers?”

His father took a second to answer, finally tearing his gaze away from the picture just to give him a long hard look. Five just glared at him in response.

“We have only a limited amount of time, Number Five. We should not waste it on pointless matters.”

He was trying to avoid the subject, interesting. Either that, or he just wanted to save the world, but Five was leaning towards the former.

“Who. Are. The Keepers.” He repeated, not budging an inch.

If there was one thing he’s learned from his siblings, it’s that some things are worth risking the world for. Admittedly, this specific instance may not be completely justified, but it was nice not being on the come on, let’s go save the world and everyone you love from the apocalypse whether I have to drag you there myself duty. It was kinder refreshing if he was being honest.

Eventually, his father concedes. “The Keepers are a cult of crazy, lunatics who believe they are in the wrong timeline.” Five raised an eyebrow.

“Are they right?”

Reginald scoffed, “Of course not, Number Five.”

“Really? Cause I have seen the items they have, and many revolve around the Umbrella Academy. Which, may I remind you, did not existed in this timeline, or the Sparrow timeline. How could they know about it then?”

“Well, as you know the Hotel Oblivion reset was not entirely complete, due to Allison’s reckless actions. You also know that the power source was not enough to completely rewrite the timeline.”

“So, you’re saying that because of the incomplete power source and Allison braining you halfway through, relics from the old, original timelines exist in this one?”

“Exactly, do keep up.”

Five was already shaking his head.

“No. That doesn’t make any sense. These relics, they are not just of things from our original timeline, they detail events that never happened at all. The Umbrella Academy never went to Parris. No. These aren’t from any timeline I’ve been in. These are from alternate, parallel timelines.”

“How are they appearing here, then?” Five turned to his father. The Commission had existed to prevent alternate timelines from existing, and yet it seemed they always had. So what changed? Why did the reset cause items from another universe to appear here? And the Keepers…

They spoke of an original timeline, but that couldn’t be their original timeline, since that one was long destroyed from the moon in 2019. From what Five could gather, the people that had memories from that timeline never mentioned the end of the world.

He had been told to gather information on the cult by Director Lance, just in case there was any talk of extreme political views, or violent actions. The Keepers were one of the biggest cults around the world, but their group sessions hadn’t given any crucial information away. So, Five had tried another tactic. He would go to their group sessions and talk briefly about his experience in his original timeline and about how he was actually over sixty.

Five hoped his interesting stories would catch the attention of the higher ups, so he could get invited to one of their actual meetings, but apparently his story was too unbelievable, and it had taken him ages for someone to approach him with an invitation. Five had been doing some snooping and hadn’t been surprised to find out Lila had also been on the case. Once they had left the meeting, he had time to discuss why he was actually interested in the group.

It had taken him a week to notice the upside-down umbrella tattoo on Director Lance’s wrist. At first, he had thought nothing of it. But once he’d heard about the Keepers, and the so-called Umbrella-Effect, Five had been pretty sure his boss was also part of the cult.

After he told Lila his suspicions, she had taken the news with her usual grace and suggested that had been one of the reasons why Lance had put them both on the case. She proposed that he tried to get excellent agents to join the cult, similar to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Five had scoffed a bit, but after he had reported that the Keepers were a bunch of crazies to Lance, he couldn’t help but notice how quickly his boss had urged him to move on to a different, less critical case.

“You know my boss is part of the Keepers?”

“The CIA have been infiltrated?” Five slowly shook his head as he turned to his father.

“No, the more likely situation is that people from the CIA have also started remembering this original timeline and joined the cult in order to gain answers.”

“Do you claim to remember anything from the original timeline, Number Five?”

Five thought back to the vision he had seen as he and his family stumbled out of the Hotel Oblivion six years ago. It had been of Ben, grown up Ben, looking happy and living a quiet life. He wanted to say no, but it seemed the universe had other ideas for him.

“Look, even if there was an original timeline, there’s no way to get it back. The Keepers claim that the Cleanse is coming, and whether they realise it or not, the only way to get back to an original timeline that no longer exists would be to completely destroy or rewrite our current one. And if that happens, there’s no guarantee on what would make it through and what would be erased forever. It’s too risky.”

“Then we must prevent the apocalypse now, are you finished with this pointless inquiry?”

Five wasn’t sure. There was still too much up in the air, and right now there was no time to think about any of it. Jennifer needed to be taken care of. The rest could wait until the crisis had been averted.

“Alright.” Five muttered, walking past his father to where the rest of his siblings were. “Let’s do this one last time.”

--

“Five, come on. We have to go. Now!”

A gunshot rang out above them. Five muttered a curse under his breath. He slammed his notebook closed and grabbed Lila’s hand. In a heartbeat they were back at the subway, the cracked, flickering lights a welcome relief from the scorching, sunbaked Earth they had found above ground.

He immediately flipped open his book again and continued scribbling down everything he could about this timeline. His feet automatically took him onto the train that had pulled up moments before. He mechanically sat down on one of the seats, head bent over his current page.

Lila sighed from somewhere behind him, sounding almost as tired as he felt. She took out a spray can bottle and made a giant X on the pillar before joining him in the train.

They had been on the subway for over a year now, according to his calculations. Time passed, but not in the same way it had in their own timeline. As far as he could tell, they weren’t aging, or at least if they were, it was at an incredibly slow rate.

Over the past few months, they had been trying to find a way back to their timeline, but it seemed the train station was committed to getting them lost. Five had been keeping track of their progress as best as he could, however he estimated they would need a lot more data to find a discernible pattern for them to use.

They had been moving around constantly, and so far, had found timelines that were either post-apocalyptic, or extremely similar to the one they had come from.

There was no in-between.

Every time they had gone above ground in timelines similar to their own, they had found newspapers claiming it was the extract same day as they’d left, phones narrowing the time difference down to the hour. Five wasn’t sure what to make of that.

From what he could tell, it seemed that the train station could take them to different timelines, all currently set at the same time as their own. Meaning, the time they spent in different timelines above ground ensured that time moved forward in their own timeline. They had to be extremely careful, every second outside the subway mattered.

After the first month, both he and Lila had agreed that they would try to get back as soon as possible, with as little time passed as possible. After all, the apocalypse was mere days away, and neither were sure how their family would fare, especially with them gone.

“Five, you should eat.”

Not now, he thought as he stood, mind still full of calculations while his body moved off the train and into the next station. Don’t worry, I’ll have some at the next stop, he reassured her. He had already eaten and didn’t want to risk dipping into their food supply. They could not afford too many trips. Anyway, he was used to the hunger, it gnawed at his stomach like a ravenous monster, but it was a familiar monster.

“Five!”

“What!” He snapped as he spun, eyes narrowed. His voice was scratchy, parched, and sounded like it hadn’t been used in a week. Lila gave him a look of concern that he made dismissing motion.

“You haven’t talked to me for like…the past eighteen timelines Five. No forgetting you’re not by yourself this time, yeah?”

“Whatever.” He muttered, but Five did unsling his bag and grab a half-eaten sandwich. He offered it to Lila first, who grabbed it, took a bite, and handed it back to him. Five rolled his eyes and began to slowly consume the rest, an old habit to try and make the food last longer.

He scribbled a few more notes down in his book with a used pen he had found. After figuring out there was a pattern to the timelines, Five and Lila designed a system which essentially ensured they both gathered supplies in as little time as possible.

Once they got to a new timeline, they would go up top to see if it was their own. If it was pos-apocalyptic, majority of them were, they would spend a few minutes on the surface, trying to calculate what caused it, before hoping back on the train. Five would mark any relevant information down in his book, and they would graffiti a large X on the walls of the station so they would not wind up their twice.

If the timeline they were taken to was similar to their own, Five would go and steal more pens, spray cans, notepads, and water from a convenience store located on the corner of where the Underground usually spat them out. While Lila would go steal some food from the local grocery store.

Actual names, and contents of the stores varied slightly timeline to timeline, however the shops they had picked were the ones Five had calculated would statistically be the most likely to end up in the same place almost every timeline.

The supplies would usually last them around ten or fifteen timelines, and every fifty they would stop and rest for a few hours in whatever subway they found themselves in.

“Five.”

Lila’s voice cut through Five’s internal thoughts, halting the calculations he was making.

“When are we going home?”

In the first few months, Lila had tried to stay positive. Cheerful, and optimistic as someone could be trapped in a timeline jumping subway. Now all the hope had drained away leaving nothing but frustration and fatigue. It hadn’t taken long for Five’s mind and body to go back to survival mode, but he assumed Lila never had to deal with living in an apocalypse.

Sure, her childhood hadn’t been easy with the Handler, however she would always be able to sleep in a room, with a roof over her head, stomach full enough so that she didn’t have to worry about her next meal.

On the other hand, after a few weeks of limited food supply and being constantly on the move, Five’s brain had decided they were back in his apocalypse. It meant his thoughts rarely wondered to what would happen once they got out. All his concentration went into his notepads, calculating supplies, looking for patterns they could use.

His goal was the same as it had always been: to get home to his family and save them.

Sometimes he could still see their bodies when he blinked, and the world fell away like an untouchable dream.

Their bodies would be laid out before him like trophies. Them riddled with bullets from the Barn.

Them burnt to a crisp in the event of a nuclear Armageddon.

Them disintegrating before his eyes in front of the Kugelblitz.

The nightmares returned as well.

Haunting screams echoed through his ears, jolting him awake at night while Lila slept peacefully by his side. He never dreamed of his Commission victims. Never.

Five wasn’t sure if that meant he had moved on, or whether his subconscious had decided to be apathetic to anyone other than his family. Those deaths didn’t weight on him. Did that make them forgivable? He didn’t know.

He looked to Lila, dishevelled, puffy eyes (she had been crying), shaking (where was Diego when you needed him?), and most of all, unsure. It had taken Five months to get her to realise that it wasn’t her fault they were stuck there. It had just come out, randomly one afternoon just as they had gotten onto the train.

“Don’t you get it!” She had yelled, screamed. “I’m the reason we’re in this mess! It’s my fault! I’m the one that wanted to explore, yo…you wanted to leave!”

No, he had tried to say, as Lila screamed, and sobbed, and cried. This is not your fault. No more than Viktor destroying the moon and causing my apocalypse. No more than the Kugelblitz was ours. What’s done is done, now we just have to focus on getting back.

“How?” She had whispered, slumped against the seat, utterly lost. Five had lent against her, and she had clung to his side like a child. The Hargreeves had been the first real family Lila had ever had, Five had realised, and she believed that it was now gone.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

“We will get home.” He promised her. “I will make sure of it. I did not spend four fucking decades in a wasteland just to get defeated by a glorified subway station. Even if it takes us years, we will see our family again.”

They had gotten off at the next stop, and Five had unanimously decided that they needed a break. The two of them sat next to each other, and the last thing he heard was the train as it whisked away.

When he awoke the next morning, Five was unsurprised to find that Lila was back to her usual self. She carefully edged around the topic of the night before, however he could see that his promise had helped, if only a little. Perhaps she had finally realised, Five would do anything for his family, and for the past six years, that had included her.

Five stared at Lila now, over a year in. He wished he could tell her that he was getting closer, but he wouldn’t give her false hope. Alternate timelines were a notion even he had previously dismissed as unlikely. However, what he lacked in knowledge, Five knew he could make up in sheer stubbornness.

“As soon as possible. We can rest at the next stop. We need to keep moving.”

Her eyes were dulled, lips chapped, and hair tangled and out of place. Five wasn’t sure why, but for some unexplainable reason, her presence made the situation seem just a bit lighter.

In the apocalypse he had no one. There had been silence, and though Deloras had been wonderful (and had probably saved his sanity) she wasn’t the same as a real, tangible person. Lila was relying on him, not just to save the world, but to get them both home, right now. She was his purpose, his task, something he had been sorely lacking for six dreadful years.

“We’re going to get home, Lila. Both of us, together. I promise.”

--

Five fucking years.

Of course it was five fucking years. It wasn’t three, or six, or two, it just had to be five.

But finally, he had done it. Five long years down in the subway, and they finally had a way home.

“How long has it been?” Lila asked impatiently. She tapped her foot restlessly.

“Around 43 hours, if my calculations are right. But…I think I can fix that as well.” Five glanced at his notebook one last time before shoving it into his bag. The numbers sat clearly in his mind as he and Lila bordered the next train.

Neither spoke, however the silence was underlined by a thin layer of hope. Over the last five years, countless hours were washed away by the two of them sitting in silence, comforted by the presence of having someone else there.

This time, Five checked, doubled checked, tripled checked everything to ensure nothing would go wrong.

The doors opened to reveal a station. Five and Lila got off the train quickly and went over to one of the walls. There, small as his hand, was a crudely drawn bird of fire. This was it, the Phoenix Academy timeline.

Five hurried up the burnt stairs, Lila right on his heels. He pulled up a mask to cover his nose, just as they both emerged into the deserted, apocalyptic future above. The sky was darkened with soot, the ground covered in ash as the wind flew through a city.

From what he could tell, Five guessed that this timeline had ended with the eruption of multiple super volcanoes, releasing millions of tonnes of ash into the air. This had caused global temperatures to decrease dramatically, and essentially everyone had either moved as close to the equator or hot spring as possible or died. The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere was about twenty percent higher than in their timeline, so they had to be quick.

Once they had found a part of the road mostly clear of rubble, Five and Lila clasped hands. Her eyes were narrowed, full of passion and concentration as Five ran the calculations one last time. He took a deep breath.

“Ready?” His voice was muffled by the mask, but he knew Lila would understand. She nodded.

“Aright. 3. 2. 1…”

Five felt the hum of power under his skin burn as he ripped a hole through spacetime. In an instant, his reserves of power plummeted, but Lila fed into him, keeping the process stable. The hue of purple lit up behind his eyes and he shoved them both through the hole.

For a moment, there was weightlessness, a familiar tug of non-existence before reality came crashing back. Five gulped down a huge breath, his knees buckled. A hand on his arm kept him from collapsing as his vision swarmed.

A wave of exhaustion rushed over him, filling every nook and cranny of his body down to the bone. For a moment, he let himself breath. In. Out. In. Out.

Eventually, Five got his legs back under him. Opening his eyes took more effort than he would ever admit, but once he did, he was close to collapsing again in relief. The destroyed city was still laid out before them, but now it was closer to noon.

Lila propped one of his arms over her shoulder, a lot easier now that he a similar height to her and steered them both towards the subway entrance. Her breaths were also short and sharp but were nowhere near as pathetic as his sounded.

“You still with me old timer?”

Five nodded in response, groaning as they jolted their way down the stairs. His head had thankfully stopped spinning, but his limbs felt like lead being dragged across Jupiter.

“That was the hard part, now we just have to take the train a few stations, and we’ll be home.”

All he could do is nod in response. The heavy sense of longing panged his old, twisted heart. They were almost home.

He didn’t remember getting on the train or how much time it took. Once Five sat down on the seat, sleep was quick to pounce on his exhausted mind. He fought to stay awake, digging his nails into his palm.

Lila must have noticed the movement. She clasped his hand firmly in hers.

“You can rest Five. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

Five wanted to protest. What if you get the number of stops wrong? What if we miss it? What if you encounter someone? But even as tired as he was, Five knew those thoughts were essentially meaningless.

Lila would not mess up something this important. No, he could reply on her.

They would not miss it, Lila wanted, no, needed, to get home. He trusted her motive.

There was no one else. In the five years they had been going from station to station, there had been no one else. Never.

For a moment, he made eye contact with her, and Five could make out the moisture there. They had done it, he realised. They really were going home.

“Just a few minutes.” He agreed reluctantly, and just before sleep claimed him, Five saw Lila smile.

Chapter Text

Five couldn’t believe it.

The Cleanse had started. None of their powers worked on the creature. Ben and Jennifer had ended the fucking world! And his family…they just wanted to DIE?!

They wanted to stay with their families…and die.

He could save them. He could save ALL OF THEM. But no.

No.

NO.

Of course fucking not!

They would rather die.

“We can save you! Don’t you understand?” Five yelled as his world came crashing down. They had made it back after five years, and yet the apocalypse had happened anyway.

He had been right. Together, Jennifer and Ben, Derango and Marigold, had reacted. An entity made of swirling red mattered had appeared and proceeded to absorb anything and everything.

They almost lost Luther, again.

Five suspected the only reason he wasn’t completely devoured was because of his Marigold. Just like how neutrons existed to make sure the protons didn’t kick each other out of the nucleus, the Vesitium creature needed to absorb enough matter before it could take in any additional Marigold or Derango.

At first Five had thought that could have been a way to defeat it, however his father had proved otherwise.

-

“You cannot stop it.” He had said to Five as the creature erupted from the mall. Five and Lila had managed to teleport everyone out, even Ben and Jennifer had made it, only to be swarmed by pandemonium.

The mob of Keepers who had surrounded the building, along with the CIA, were all panicking. People fired sprays of bullets into the building, the crowd was screaming, everyone was running. In all the chaos, Five had instructed his siblings to go to Luther’s place, along with the Lila’s parents, and the children.

For once in their lives, they had listened.

Lila had looked back at him once, but she must have seen something because she didn’t ask him to join the circle of clasped hands. Instead, she had teleported them to the truck.

“It will absorb any weapon you throw at it. Hydrogen bombs, antimatter weapons, the very planet itself.”

“What about Marigold?” Five had asked, desperate. He looked to his father, who sat on a bench. Five did a double take and noticed that sitting next to Reginald was Abigial, who wore Gene’s cloths. She smiled at him with sad eyes. When had she gotten here?

Reginald shook his head. “Though you and the other children will be semi resistant to being absorbed for a small while, it will not matter in the long run. If you were to throw more Marigold at the creature, it would only split, increasing the problem rather than fixing it.

“Fuck!”

Five glanced up and the saw the creature tearing its way through the building. He looked at his father, who watched him with something close to understanding.

“Number Five, if you wish to die with your family, I suggest you go now.”

He shook his head. “There has to be a way to fix this!”

What about time travel? All he had to do was travel back in time and get rid of any Derango hosts before they arrived in the timeline back in 2019. Easy.

“Time travel is not the solution, Five.” Abigail said gently, and Five glared at her. She held his gaze steady and continued. “Derango and Marigold have been trying to find each other ever since I separated them back on our home world. This is destiny. No matter what you do, this will aways happen.”

“Fuck that! My family is not going to die just because a crazy alien scientist pissed off some fundamental particle centuries ago and broke the universe. There has to be another way!”

A piece of rubble flew towards him, and Five blinked out of the way. When he looked back at the bench, he saw his father and Abigail speaking softly to each other. Fuck that! They had bigger things to worry about.

He looked up to see the creature melding into a nearby building. It would notice them soon. This was his last chance.

“How do we fix it?” He blinked in front of the two aliens who were leaned against each other, hands clasped together. “How can I save everyone?”

“You can’t. I’m sorry Five, but this time, you cannot save them.”

-

“Why won’t you go to the subway? We could all survive!”

Five stood in the middle of Luther’s strange place he called home. He wasn’t sure, but it look pretty similar to the main living room of their old house. What were the chances that Reginald still built the place at all in this timeline? Maybe it was his original house? Maybe that was why a lot of the architecture was old fashioned.

Regardless, the two large couches in the centre made for an easy place for his siblings, plus Jennifer, to sit down while he tried to figure out a way to keep them all alive.

Allison watched him, eyes red and puffy. Claire was right next to her, squished by her side next to Klaus whom she had reluctantly forgiven for being buried alive. (He had yet to hear that story)

“We’re tired Five.” She started, and Five held back to the urge to state the obvious. We’re all tired, get over it. The world’s ending, we can survive. What are we all still doing here? He didn’t say it, he could have, but he didn’t. Sometimes silence spoke louder than words.

“And we don’t even know if we’ll be able to find another timeline that’s safe. What happens if another Kugelblitz is created? Or another apocalypse? We are not Rick and Morty, Five. There are consequences for timeline jumping that even you have not foreseen.”

He ignored the Rick and Morty reference – whatever it was – and looked around the room. Five was met with tired faces, more puffy eyes, and the worst thing of all…acceptance.

“So that’s it? Your all just going to give up?!”

“Five, that’s not the point – ” Luther started, but Five cut him off.

“No! That is the point. That is the exact point. You’ve all accepted you’re going to die, haven’t you?” He waited for a reaction, but none came. There was only blank looks of sympathy which were not as nearly as helpful as people believed they were.

“And your children?!” He gestured to Claire, and to Diego and Lila’s kids who were being looked after by her parents on the other side of the room. “Do they believe that dying is better than surviving?”

Claire narrowed her eyes. Five was hit with a wave of nostalgia, she looked just like Allision in that moment. Upset, and ready to fight back with her words. “Do you think I want to live in a world knowing that our own is completely destroyed? That everyone I ever knew is dead?”

“At least you would be alive to remember them.”

“That’s not the point!”

“And who are you to claim our salvation?” Five looked behind and saw that Jennifer was slumped back on the couch, one of Ben’s arms wrapped around her as she pressed into him.

“I’m the only one in this godforsaken family who actually cares about living, apparently!”

“Really?!” Claire barked, “Cause you seem to do a shit job at it!”

Five whirled around and glared at her, but she tilted her chin up defiantly. “Even Uncle Klaus has a better life than you. He has friends. He travelled. He had a boyfriend. What do you have?”

Everyone turned their eyes to him, and Five took a deep breath. He looked to Viktor, searching for support, but found only crossed arms and stern expression.

Fine. He would do this alone, as always.

“It doesn’t matter what I have.” He started out meticulously, making sure everyone heard every word. “What matters is making sure this family stays alive along enough for you to have your own.”

“You can still leave, Five.” Diego wasn’t looking at him, instead his gaze was fixed on the carpet, as if afraid to meet his brother’s eyes. “You can still survive.”

It took every inch of will power not to scream. They think that I care about living. Me. His thoughts sounded slightly crazed; they must be delusional. Yes, Five had survived decades in the apocalypse, yes, he had killed hundreds of people for the Commission, but survival was never the point.

The goal was never to survive.

Survival was just a prerequisite in helping his family live. Of ensuring they had enough time to go about their lives and be happy.

Do they not understand?

He glanced briefly at Lila, she knew exactly what he thought about survival, before marching away. Five heard a voice call his name but ignored it.

Fine.

They won’t save themselves. I’ll just have to do it for them.

After a flash of purple, Five was back in the train station. He glanced around, nothing seemed out of place, but he scanned the area anyway. By this point, he could have re-created every square centimetre of the station and train from memory alone. Everything was exactly the same…except…There! What was that? A burst of colour that hadn’t been there before.

Five walked around the pillar and stopped dead. It was a cross, identical to the ones he and Lila had been putting up when they had been stuck in the subway. The cross was black, which according to their code, meant that the timeline it was connected to was not post- apocalyptic and was good for a supply run.

How? They hadn’t put it there. The pillar had been completely blank when they had arrived, that begged the question, who painted the cross? The hairs on the back of his head pricked up, and Five continued to study the cross as he reached a hand inside his jacket pocket. There was someone behind him, he could feel their gaze on his back like a spotlight.

Suddenly, Five twisted around and launched the knife from his pocket into the air. It took him less than a second to locate his target, but once weapon was air born, their appearance registered. Not a moment later, the target was gone in a familiar purple light, and Five stepped back instinctively.

There were only two possible scenarios. Either Lila had followed him, or that was another version of him from an alternate timeline. His question was answered a second later when a voice spoke from behind him.

“You’re a new one, probably should have expected that.” Five spun around and was met with himself.

“Me, I presume, from a different timeline?”

The other Five gave a curt nod. “This your first time being down in the subway? If so, I would advise sticking to the stations. You don’t want to progress time too far forward, otherwise you’ll end up beyond our help.”

Five shook his head, “What do you mean our?” It was slightly disconcerting to see himself outside of a mirror, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing Five had ever seen so shoved it to the corner of his mind for the time being.

“I’ll show you. Follow me.” The other Five walked towards the rails, and a second later the train pulled up to the station. Five hesitated, he didn’t see any reason why this would be a trap, but at the same time, he didn’t want to leave his timeline. Last time that had gone horribly wrong, and he couldn’t afford to get lost.

What if they can help you save them? A voice in his head whispered, and in the end, that was what it always came down to. Save them.

The two Fives rode the train for about twenty minutes. Five kept eyeing his doppelgänger, but the other seemed uninterested. He kept a mental map in his mind about where they were going, so that he would be able to get back without a hitch. After working on the map for half a decade, the lines and short cuts were firmly seared into his skull forever.

The station they got off at appeared the same to any other, the only difference Five could see was an additional passageway that led further into the station. Only some stations had extra branches, usually he and Lila had just used them to get some sleep in the timelines that weren’t post-apocalyptic.

Down the end of this one, was something Five couldn’t have predicted in a thousand years. Is that a café? It did indeed look like a stereotypical store that one would find in subways where breakfast or magazines could be bought. As he walked through the doors, the sight that greeted him once again made him freeze in his tracks, his mind taking a second to process the sight.

Countless versions of himself were just sitting around, eating food. One was manning the register; another was sitting comfortably in an armchair. The entire walls of the café were covered in black boards, while higher up, pictures were displayed, each depicting a different type of apocalypse. One showed the moon, another was a solar flare, a super volcano, a virus, a nuclear bomb, a tsunami, and it just kept going on and on.

“I always thought the pictures were a little on-the-nose. You new here?” Five glanced down and saw another version of him, who was also looking up at the pictures.

“How many versions of us are here?” He asked, and the other Five just shrugged. He pointed towards a black board near the entrance and Five walked over. The heading said Fives Present, and there were individual tallies marked scattered underneath. He counted them, and according to the tally there were 42 currently present. Five picked up a piece of chalk. 43.

“What is this place?” Five asked the version of him who was also looking at the paintings. The Five motioned him over and they both took a seat at a nearby booth. Another Five came over, he was wearing an apron and placed down a plate in front of Paintings Five.

Paintings Five took a bite of the food, it looked like some sort of cake, and said once he’d finished a mouthful, “This café is where we meet up. In any timeline that has a Five, we end up here, eventually.”

That must mean that Hotel Oblivion existed in every universe, since his power hadn’t been strong enough before to be able to teleport to the subway. It needed the concentrated Marigold, which was only available after they had all lost their powers and Reginald had re-written the timeline.

“Are your timelines also in imminent peril of being completely destroyed?” Five asked, leaning back. Paintings Five scoffed.

“When is it not. But yes. In every timeline, an apocalypse will occur and keep occurring, until everyone in that timeline is dead.”

He didn’t wince, but it was a close-run thing. The never-ending apocalypses explained why there was such a stark contrast between worlds that were post-apocalyptic, and those that were still standing. Five suspected the key difference was most likely him. If he wasn’t part of the Umbrella Academy, or whatever name Dad had given them, then the first apocalypse would have most likely wiped everyone out.

“So all the Five’s just hide out here, waiting for their timeline to end?”

“Yes, most of us have gone through two apocalypse at the minimum, and apparently that was enough to wear out our family’s resolve. So when the next one came rolling into town, they chose to stay instead of braving the subway.”

So it wasn’t just his family, then. Apparently, versions of the Academy existed throughout, and in each one they were destined for unhappy endings.

“Were all the other Five’s also lost in the subway?”

“Of course, I only spent a year going around, but I know some of the others took longer.”

Five pushed down the flood of anger. Of course, even among versions of himself he was considered unlucky.

“A year!” He spat out, “I spent five fucking years trying to get back to my own timeline, how the fuck did you do it in one?”

There had been so many times he had wanted to give up, Five could admit. So many times where he had thought about just finding an okay timeline to settle down in. But the hope of getting back to his family had kept him going, and the fact that Lila was replying on him ensured that he didn’t make any foolish mistakes.

The fact that some versions of him had avoided that almost entirely…Five couldn’t believe it.

The other Five frowned, “We just used the symbols sprayed on the pillars, did you not see those?”

He clenched his hand into a fist, no doubt leaving crescent shaped marks on his palm. No one in their right mind could miss the symbols! Apparently he had done all the hard work for them.

“I’m the one that drew the fucking symbols, dipshit! Ah, fuck! You all must have taken longer to get down to the subway, meaning the symbols were already there. Damit!” Five slammed his fist down onto the table, the pain barely registering.

Picture Five slid his food to the side, “We all owe you for that then. I’m sorry, for the five years, but right now all we have is time. Without a way to fix the apocalypses, there’s nothing we can do but wait.”

Five sighed, “Is there anywhere I can go take a nap?” He asked, defeated.

His doppelgänger pointed to some stairs and Five dragged himself up. He contemplated blinking, but couldn’t muster up the energy and instead manually climbed each stair. A yawn threatened to spill past his lips as he eyes drooped heavily. Today had been a fucking mess. At least in the subway, there was no time. He could spend eternity in this café, and his family would be frozen in the moment he left.

Five collapsed into the nearest bed he could find, uncaring if he was messing up some already organised system. He would deal with that in the morning, but if someone decided to wake him up, he guaranteed he would slit their throat, even if it was another version of himself.

-

He blinked, where was he? Five looked around, he was in some sort of park. There was a picnic blanket in front of him, laid out on a grass which was shaded by a massive, towering tree about two meters away.

“When are the others getting here?”

The voice made him whip around, Allison?

Sure enough, Allision was setting up food on a fold out table, glancing up every few seconds. She wore a floral green dress that went down to her knees, her hair tied up in a sloppy bun.

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”

Five turned, and sure enough, it was Ray. Allison’s husband. He was unfolding some camping chairs and positioning them around the blanket. At his wife’s question, he pulled out his phone, presumably checking the time.

“We said two, they still have ten minutes.”

Allison scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You know Klaus and Dave are going to be late, honestly, I don’t think Klaus has been on time for anything in his life!”

Ray chuckled, sitting down in one of the chairs. “Perhaps they are just wrangling Claire and Harlan, those two are trouble incarnate.”

“Harlan will try and be helpful for the most part, he’s not the one we have to worry about. Claire will just use her charm to get whatever she wants, neither Klaus nor Dave grew up with little sisters. At least Viktor should be here soon with Sissy, the concert finished an hour ago.”

The mention of a concert sparked something in Five’s memory. Just before he and his family had left dad’s house, he had seen Viktor. Sissy had gone up on stage with him and bowed after he had finished his performance. Was that what they were referring to?

“Is Ben getting a taxi?” Ray asked, and Allison shook her head. She had finished laying out large tubs of finger food and had come over to join her husband in one of the chairs. Five looked around absently, it was obvious they couldn’t see him and that they weren’t in any danger, so why was he here?

“Nar, Luther and Sloane picked him up from the airport and leant him their spare room. They should be on the way now. His new girlfriend, Jennifer, should also be joining us.”

Five thought back to the first vision he had, Ben on a train reading a book. The signs had been in Korean, so it must have been before he flew over.

Was this another timeline? That was the most obvious answer, but that wouldn’t explain Ray, Sissy, Harlan or Dave. They had all been around in the 60s and most had died by the time 2019 rolled around. Ray’s phone looked modern, meaning they hadn’t been sent to the past.

There was another thing. When Allison had been ten, she had been injured by a knife that Diego had been playing around with. The wound hadn’t been that bad but had scared on her left forearm. When Five looked, the skin was flawless. This version of Allison had never been a part of the Umbrella Academy.

“Allison! Your small child is making fun of me. Allison! Help!” Five turned and saw Klaus, being dragged along by Claire, and Dave, who was walking behind with Harlan. He moved to inspect the other two when his vision blurred. In a moment, their voices faded into incoherent murmur.

He turned around frantically, searching for anything he could use to identify what the hell was going on.

It didn’t make any sense. A universe where the Umbrella Academy didn’t exist? How? Did a whole other group of children become Marigold hosts? But that didn’t explain his sibling’s existence. Nor the lack of apocalypse or their spouse’s miraculous appearance.

Five found himself in darkness, the vision was gone. How is this happening? Why them? What timeline could this possibly be? If Derango and Marigold caused never ending apocalypses until the end of days, why did they look so carefree, so happy?

Most importantly of all…why was I never mentioned?

-

Five woke to the sound of silence. He drifted into awareness slowly, considering the unfamiliar bed, room, and smell. He pushed himself up and just sat, legs off the bed. There had been a dream, Allison and Ray, preparing for some picnic at a park.

He remembered the feeling of the wind as it gently ruffled his hair, the smell of the fresh grass, the voice of his sister. To anyone else, it might have hardly been worth mentioning, but Five had woken up from countless nightmares in the past, so he knew the peaceful dreams were worth remembering.

It had all felt so real.

He shook himself and got off the bed. Feeling his head clearer than it had been in months, Five blinked down into the café. No one spared him another glance and he walked over to the nearest black board. Quickly, he wrote out all he remembered from the past dreams/visions he’d had.

The one with Ben on the train he’d seen just after stepping out of the Hotel Oblivion. The one with Viktor playing at the Icarus Theatre. Lastly, the one with Allison and all he herd about his other siblings. Once he stopped and took a step back, a thought struck him dead like lightning.

No apocalypse. No powers. No Umbrella Academy.

There was one other place that could have been described that way. One singular place.

The Original Timeline.

The one that the Keepers believed in and tried to create by destroying our timeline.

Five frowned. If the Original Timeline really was the one all the others were branches of, that meant they would need to destroy every other timeline in order to re-create it.

Then what was the original break?

He pondered that for a moment before scoffing, what was he thinking? He knew what the original break was. It was the event that had started this whole mess…Someone had told him.

“Not only was the weapon real…fundamental particle also existed…and we were determined to discover it…called it Vesitium…I was the head scientist…my life’s work… managed to split this particle into two separate individual substances…Marigold and Derango…Vesitium was quiet…undetectable…neither of its two products were.”

That’s what had caused the split in the original timeline…Abigail’s work! If Vesitium was a fundamental particle, then it would be necessary for the continued existence of the timeline. However, if someone were to say…split a small amount into two separate substances, that timeline would not doubt become unstable and end up splitting as well, leading to the alternate realities. That’s why there was a finite amount of Derango and Marigold, because it all originated from one singular timeline. The fact that it was a fundamental particle must be one of the reasons why it was able to travel between timelines so easily.

And without all the Marigold and Derango merged, the original timeline would remain lost. That explained the apocalypses! It was the universe’s way of trying to reunite the two substances in order to get back onto its original course. Because of the super powered children of that universe were dead, it would mean the Marigold and Derango would be free.

That begged the question of why neither substance had run out as the universes around them had continually been destroyed, but perhaps all the sources had to be destroyed in roughly the same time frame. 43 universes where the Derango and Marigold were trapped, since there was no way any version of himself was letting his family die.

Five blinked rapidly, he had completely zoned out. He glanced around and saw every pair of eyes on him, shit. During the decades in the apocalypse, Five had often rambled to himself and Dolores in order to stay sane. It seemed he accidentally started assembling the pieces back together out loud. For the whole café to hear. Still, it wasn’t like they could judge him, actually that prospect concerned him the least.

One of the other Fives walked over cautiously. “What are you talking about?” He asked, his eyes focused on the scrawly writing on the wall. “What’s the original timeline?”

“The Original Timeline is exactly what it says. It’s the original sequence of events, no apocalypse, no powers, no dad. Something splintered it, my guess it was Abigail’s discovery and subsequent splitting of Vesitium, spurring all of our timelines into existence. It explains why apocalypses keep occurring to us, it’s the universes way of trying to give back the parts of the fundamental particle.”

Another Five stepped forward, rubbing a hand over their eyes. “Alright,” He said, eyes narrowed. “Explain it to us. From the beginning.”

And Five did.

It took at least three black boards, but he eventually got all his doppelgangers nodding alongside his explanations. His throat felt like it had spent the day sunbathing, so he blinked behind the counter to grab a glass of water. He watched as his doubles conversed with each other, talking about his theory and what it could mean.

Five had a slight inkling about the best course of action, however he wouldn’t be able to do it alone. After two glasses of water, he grasped the nearest metal implements – which happened to be a spatula and the coffee machine respectively – and hit them together three times. The clang of the mental reverberated around the room, and all the Fives quickly stopped their conversations to stare at him.

With their attention placed firmly on him, Five took a deep breath before breaking the news. “I know what we have to do.”

He paused, and no one breathed a word. Five gathered the silence was a good sign and continued.

“Look, we know that there is a chance that this Original Timeline could exist. We could get our families there, make sure they are safe from the apocalypse forever. However, there is only one way that could work.”

He hesitated and could see that the eyes watching him had already worked it out. At this point, there was no point saying it, but he gathered his voice anyway.

“We need to extract the Derango and Marigold from our timelines and let our worlds get destroyed with our families safe on the train. That is the only way we can solve this.”

“It could take decades to work out how to extract Marigold and Derango.” One of his variants pointed out, but Five shook his head.

“All we have is time. This is the only way we can guarantee our family’s safely, but I won’t be able to do it alone.”

There was a moment when Five thought he had mis-stepped. He was the newest Five there, and the others all no doubt had been trying to come up with a solution for years. This crazy theory of his was extremely farfetched, which was pretty extreme considering they can all time travel and apparently had access to multiple different realities.

All the others remained quiet, some communicating in rough gestures that he could only begin to guess about. The tension in the air was thick and suffocating, but he took another steadying breath, trying to keep his nerves at bay. Another Five sighed before blinking over and reaching a handout to clasp his shoulder. It was the same side that had lost an arm during the fight with the Guardian.

“You won’t have to.”

The other Five turned to address the café. “We’ve all sacrificed a lot for out families, there is no point stopping now. We will need everyone, all forty-three of us to agree. This is our last hope at saving everyone. And – ”

“Alright! You can stop with the bloody speech, we get it. There is no other way. All or nothing. No need to keep carrying on. I’m in.”

“So am I.”

“Whatever.”

“Fine.”

Five watched as his doppelgangers sighed, rolled their eyes, heavily protested, and frowned, but agreed nonetheless. It seemed that there was hope yet.

“Alright.” He called, “Let’s get to work.”