[For Klaus and Five]

[fifthbeatle]

The evening was new when Vanya popped up in Allison's living room. They talked for hours, the Hargreeves Sisters. What Vanya would have given to have felt this before. They almost got there, before a psychotic man blew her psyche wide open. It's difficult to think about, but what she got out of it was forgiveness that she doesn't deserve and never had to ask for. She has a sister that isn't afraid to care for her - that isn't afraid of anything. What she wouldn't give to have gotten to this place sooner (and with less complications).

It's well into the night when Allison gets up to sleep. Vanya knows she has an apartment, but the thought of sleeping there alone makes her skin crawl. Before she could ask to stay - and she might not have even been able to bring herself to - Allison had all but tucked her in on her couch, complete with blanket and gentle smile. Vanya can't thank her enough.

This new affection is a lot for a girl bodily suppressed for 29 years, and on top of that, The City. Even though it has a name, Vanya's not ready to use it. That makes it real. When she thinks about it too long, it feels like the Academy: a home she never wanted. A locked basement door where no one outside can hear you scream.

Suddenly, she's on her feet, like the sounds of the settling building and the rustling of the blankets as she shifts is tuning into her. It's that feeling, the one that she used to think she needed pills for. She's kind of pacing for a second. She doesn't want to leave Allison, she doesn't want to go outside, and she doesn't want to stay put to find out what happens if she can't control the way the rustle of the trees outside is tapping in time with her heartbeat. She doesn't want to be alone. She can't ask any more of Allison when she's done so much. Panic is setting in, feeding on the sound of itself. Fuck. No.

It's Ben's voice that cuts through. It's not real, so there's nothing to resonate. Just his gentle voice in her head: you aren't alone at the table anymore, Vanya.

Quietly as she can, Vanya creeps out, but not before leaving a note on a piece of paper, right next to Allison's little portable phone. Wild.

Went upstairs.
See you tomorrow.
Thank you so much.
Love,
Vanya

Vanya takes the stairs, her heart thumping through her feet instead of in her ears. Panic is becoming something else. Maybe there will always be a fear that she doesn't fit in right, but she is trying to listen to the soundless things: like her siblings climbing into Sissy's car just to help her. Like being smothered between Klaus and Allison in the salon. Like watching Five eat his first Fluffernutter sandwich back at the Academy.

Now that she's at the door to #53, she flexes her hands for a second. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she she knocks softly. Maybe too softly. If they're asleep they may not hear. After about another 30 seconds, she knocks again, a bit louder. Her heart's kicked up. She's suddenly so excited to see her brothers.

Comments

[number_five]

It's strange, being able to get a full night's sleep. Five's still not used to it. Whether he was in the apocalypse or with the Commission, or even with his siblings trying to stave off the end of the world, Five has been on edge. There's always been something to do, some threat.

He's been in Darrow for over two months now. Nothing's come for him, nothing's come for either of his siblings-- at least not directly-- and he's beginning to get complacent. But maybe he's earned it. Maybe, for a change, they're safe. At least for now.

All of this is why Five's fast asleep when there's a knock at the door late at night. At the first knock, Five groans, turning over in bed and hoping it'll go away. At the second, he turns over, wide awake. Wide awake and annoyed.

He stands and blinks into the hallway, noticing Klaus's open bedroom door and empty bed, and rolls his eyes.

"Let me guess, you lost your key?" Five calls to the door, padding over to open it in bare feet and a set of striped pajamas.

But it's not his brother on the other side of the door.

"Vanya?"

[fifthbeatle]

The door opens and Vanya hears Five's voice, grumbly and full of annoyance. It makes the corners of her mouth want to curl into a desperate smile, but she controls herself. It's late and 40-some years of time travel has chipped away at Five's already slim patience.

"Hi, Five," she says gently, almost undercutting the smile playing at her lips, but not quite. She ducks her head for a second. When she comes back up, she says, "I'm sorry to wake you." She wants to tell him in a rush about how she just got here and how she was scared until she saw Allison and how she was scared again until he opened the door, but she doesn't. It's still so hard, navigating feeling anything at all.

[number_five]

"No, it's okay," Five says, and his expression changes immediately, from annoyance, to surprise, and then cautious relief. Vanya's in Darrow, and she knows him. So she's either from before the first apocalypse, or from after Five was plucked out of the Dallas timeline.

He opens the door and moves to the side to let Vanya in.

"Which one sent you here? Was it Klaus or Allison?"

[fifthbeatle]

Since she's barging in on her brother(s) at a pretty ghastly hour, she doesn't want to be smiling so wide, but watching the expression Olympics of her brother's face after an anxious walk up some creaky stairs fills her with such relief.

"Allison," she answers, stepping into the apartment that he and Klaus share. What a trip of a concept, too. It's all so bizarre that it keeps her feeling kind of loopy. That's why she's absolutely smiling when she answers her brother's predictably paranoid question with their sister's name.

"Thank you for letting me in. I'm sorry it's so late." She pauses and asks reluctantly, "Do you remember what happened at the barn in Dallas?" She's asking what he knows so either she can fill in the gaps or he can. "I think Allison said time is different for all of us?"

[number_five]

It's not so much paranoia that prompts Five's question as it is needing to know what sort of baseline explanation Vanya's gotten when it comes to Darrow. Hearing that Allison filled her in means he'll probably have fewer gaps to fill.

Five turns and closes the door behind her.

"I don't," he continues, in answer to her question, "Last time I saw you, we were all catching up with dear old Dad."

It's not what he was doing right before he ended up in Darrow, but he still thinks it's probably best if he doesn't tell any of his siblings the truth about that day. Or what he had to do get them the briefcase that they apparently didn't end up using at all.

[fifthbeatle]

"That's one way of putting it," Vanya murmurs, crossing her arms over her chest. She's still smiling a bit though, because it's Five and he looks just like the boy that left. By Vanya's timeline, they hadn't gotten much of a chance to catch up - mostly they passed like ships in the night who occasionally tried to kill each other - and Vanya's heart has ached to be reunited with him for so long. At some point, she'd given up hope. Of course she had: their father had kept her so ass-backward and out of it on pills and bullshit for her whole life. What if the rest of her days she's just a fuse waiting to be lit? If there is one person that can understand that, it's Five. He'd always gotten her. That's why she held on for so long.

Vanya's quiet for a long second, hunched in like she's felt since she was a child. After inspecting for floor for a few moments, she lifts her eyes and asks quietly, "did anyone tell you what causes it? The apocalypse?"

[number_five]

He's about to suggest they find a spot on the couch when Vanya asks the question. It's a fair one, but he's not expecting it right away. That was probably a mistake.

"Klaus filled me in," Five says, because he wasn't there for that part. There's a part of him that resents it; he spent so much time and energy trying to prevent the apocalypse and he wasn't even there to find out what caused it. He should just be glad that it didn't actually happen, but it's hard not to feel like he missed out.

"I hope you know it's not your fault, Vanya," he adds, sincere.

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya's eyes find the floor again. She's not angry with Klaus for filling in the spaces - not that she could be even if any of this made sense - but she does have that familiar push of rejection inside her. There's nothing to have prompted it. That's what Vanya reminds herself now: no one is blaming her. Even though they should.

Then, Five says what she's trying to prove to herself. It's how she can bring herself to look at him again, brows knitted in what is most likely an attempt at preventative self-control.

"They tortured me," Vanya says softly, trying to convey that she is giving her best shot at believing what Five says. "And drugged me. I saw things..." She swallows around a lump in her throat. This is not Five's problem. It hadn't even been Ben's problem, but he loved her back into existence, sacrificing himself. There are times she's still full of wonder about it and others where she feels bolstered by the building truth of it: the Hargreeves siblings show up for each other.

"Do you - may I have something to drink? Water is fine." Come to think of it, she and Allison talked for hours and she hadn't thought about the hunger and thirst working up. She's not so sure she could eat right now, but water is a great start. If she's lucky, Five doesn't have anywhere to be and they can catch up or something. Whatever the Hargreeves version of that is.

[number_five]

"Yeah, sure," Five says, his voice quiet, expression soft and concerned as he looks at her, and gestures for her to take a seat on the couch. He walks to the kitchen and grabs a glass out of the cabinet, filling it with water from the tap.

He wasn't there for any of what happened to Vanya. From the way he understands it, there's a version of him that wasn't plucked from the timeline and brought to Darrow, but he and Five are two different people.

There's a large part of him that hates himself for not being there, even if he had no control over it. And it's only partially because he wanted to see it through to the end, stopping the apocalypse.

He walks back into the room, holding out the glass to Vanya.

"Here," he says, and takes a seat himself, "And you don't have to talk about what you saw. Not if you don't want to."

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya is as grateful for the invitation to sit as she is for the water, but she waits for the latter before she thanks him quietly. She takes the glass with both hands and takes a drink. She sits forward, the glass in her hands like she's leeching much-needed warmth from a mug of cocoa.

"I saw all of you," Vanya says, because she's near-desperate to talk to someone she trusts - and Five in particular. "And Dad. It was... like a dream I couldn't wake up from. Every time they... every time they zapped me, all I could hear was Dad telling me I'm making it up. That I don't want to remember." Her brows crease in something like restrained anger as she brings her eyes up to Five. "I wanted to remember. That month I was on with Sissy on the farm, I looked - I did - for something. For you and the rest, maybe." A beat. "Somehow, when I -- I guess I imagined it, but it felt so real - when I heard him saying it. It sounded true. Maybe it was easier for me to forget what I did..."

That's where she runs out of steam. Too exhausted to charge powers and too confused by all of the things that she has to process, she drops her head again.

"I don't know." A huge understatement. She has no fucking idea how to be as a person, a powered person, a sister and an instrument of destruction.

[number_five]

Five takes in what Vanya says, and his expression turns rueful as he looks at her.

"The old man really had a way of getting to all of us, didn't he?" Five says, though he knows that Vanya probably got the worst of it. At the time, it seemed like she'd been spared some of what they'd all been through, but they'd all been left in the dark on that, apparently.

"I still... I still don't know why you lost your memory, Vanya. At first, I blamed myself, thought maybe it had to do with how the time travel had gone wrong," he frowns, "But you're right, maybe it was a defense mechanism. A way to deal with what happened without overloading yourself, and it would have come back to you eventually."

He's no shrink and he's just making guesses here.

[fifthbeatle]

"No, It wasn't you, either," Vanya says, shaking her head a couple times. "I hit my head on the ground. O-on the road when Sissy hit me with her car." She scoots forward, brows knitted over frantic eyes. "You have to believe me. I was so scared. I-I would never choose to forget--" She stops. It turns out that Vanya made no choices at all in her younger years. What she knew as truth was a fictional aria, orchestrated in isolation by a man that was her father in name only. When he manipulated her memory, he didn't bother to replace her sense of purpose. Vanya tried to fill the senseless void with music, but there was always a part of her somewhere that felt wrong. Repressed. The veil was only lifted because Leonard saw her as her father did: a powerful, but broken instrument. If Vanya had a destiny, she fulfilled it when she murdered Leonard and Pogo and blew up the Academy room by room. It was the first time in her life she could really remember everything -- and her choice was to go nuclear. Of course she would choose to forget. Forgetting was the power her dad imbued her with when he took her own.

Suddenly, the glass is too heavy. She sets it down on a little table near her and drops her head. It's not fair. It's not fair that their father made them all study the great mysteries of the universe and couldn't be bothered to let he find herself.

"I still hate him." Her voice is quiet. Her fingers are faintly shaky. She wasn't trying to kill Leonard or Pogo or her siblings: she wanted to hurt him. But she couldn't. So she did what he taught her: blow up and forget.

[number_five]

"Yeah, you're not alone in that," Five says, though he's not sure he actually hates their father. But he's had a much longer time to sit with it all, forty-five years of solitary contemplation over what he'd done to them and why he'd done it.

That's not something he'll say to his siblings, though. Even before the disaster at the tiki lounge, Five had known that anger was still fresh. And it's probably justified.

"And I believe you," he goes on to say, "After what he put you through... I think a lot of people might choose to forget it, to make things easier. But that's never been how any of us operate."

[fifthbeatle]

She's a little surprised to hear Five agree with her, though she's not sure why. It was no secret that Five - for the time he was there - was their dad's favorite. Reginald fancied Five the most like himself. It is the best compliment there is that Vanya thinks he was wrong.

It's not good that she so often thinks how glad she is that their father is dead. The hate she holds is literally destructive. That's another reason there's such magic in Five's gentility. She is the most dangerous of all of them. Besides Allison, Five knows that best. Yet, here he is, leaning in and telling her he believes her and the unspoken bit: he believes in her.

"It's obviously better if I don't," Vanya says with a sad little smile. Now that she's looking over at Five instead of at the floor, she feels calmed. He never looked at her like that in Texas and after it all, she thought he might never again. That he is alive and in front of her alone is a miracle she hasn't had the time to appreciate yet.

"Thank you."

[terriblymisguided]

Klaus is awake, but that isn't unusual. He doesn't get much sleep at the apartment, not as much as he does when he's over at Obi-Wan's. He's had a few glasses of whiskey, but he isn't that drunk, just kind of leveled out. He's sober enough that he can hear the ghost of a woman screaming a floor below, but drunk enough that it doesn't make him want to tear his skin off. Balance.

He's walking from his room to the kitchen in a pair of black pajama pants, raising his whiskey tumbler to his mouth, when suddenly there's a knock at the door. Five is out somewhere, as made clear by his open bedroom door and the darkness within, but it's not like he would need to knock if he forgot his key. Obi-Wan isn't one to just randomly show up. It could be Allison, but she probably would have texted first, given the time. Klaus's eyes narrow with vague suspicion, and he saunters slowly over to the door to pull it open.

He doesn't know what it was expecting, but it certainly wasn't to see his sister. His other sister. His narrowed eyes widen and he throws the door open, holding his glass in one hand while reaching up to touch his cheek with the other.

"Vanya?" He lets out a bright, happy laugh and steps back to let her in. "Holy shit. You're here!"

[fifthbeatle]

As the door opens, Vanya doesn't know what to expect. She wants to apologize, to explain why she would come to wake her brothers up.

Klaus seems delighted to see her, despite the late hour and everything they've been through. Vanya is instantly beaming and she can't hide it.

"Klaus," she says. It's meant to be a greeting, but she's kind of in awe still. She means to step into the apartment graciously, but as soon as she's a few steps in, she wraps her arms around her brother, eyes squeezed shut so tight. She murmurs, "I'm so happy to see you."

[terriblymisguided]

Suddenly he has Vanya wrapped around him, and Klaus blinks in surprise, stumbling back a bit as he curls his arm around her shoulders. It's a sudden show affection that he wasn't expecting and it takes him a moment to process it. And once he does, he leans into it hard.

"Vanny." He grins and walks her back from the door so he can close it, and then turns to set his glass down on the coffee table so he can wrap both arms around her and give her a squeeze. "Did you just get here? How did you find us?"

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya is shaking faintly. It's the itch of time travel and information overload. Allison's been so gentle with her, patiently explaining the things about this place that Vanya still can't quite grasp, no matter how many times she asks. Vanya doesn't blame her for needing sleep, nor did Vanya herself realize how overwhelmed she is. She wants to stay there and cry for a solid several minutes, but that seems like it would be asking a lot of a person that has opened his home in the dead of night and is so patient as to squeeze her back when she grabs him. So, she pulls back a little to look up at him, still sort of hanging on. There are no tears yet.

"I don't know. We were in Dallas and Five -- he had the briefcase. We were going back to 2019, but I wound up here: in Allison's living room. I was trying to get some sleep but I couldn't, so I came here." Now that she's said all of that, some of the panic is back. "I-I'm so sorry, I know it's late..."

[terriblymisguided]

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Klaus says quietly, brow furrowing in concern as he looks down at his sister's face. He can't believe that both of them showed up here, especially so close together. Maybe they'll all show up here, eventually. Wouldn't that be something?

He may not know how that whole fight back in Dallas ended, but he knows what Vanya is going through. For her, the FBI building and Ben and that farmer's wife and her kid all just happened, and now she's here in Darrow. His first thought is to try and calm her down because he cares, and his second thought is to try and calm her down because, well. She can get explodey if she gets too upset, and no one wants that.

"Are you kidding? Come on, if you can't sleep, you came to the right place. I never sleep!" He gives her an encouraging smile and then kisses her forehead before leading her over to the sofa, tugging her down next to him and keeping his arm around her shoulders. "Seriously, I'm happy to see you. And Five," he adds, hooking his thumb over his shoulder towards the hall. "He's off somewhere, but I'll call him. He'll be glad. You're not bothering anyone, Vanny."

[fifthbeatle]

Like Allison, Klaus is so gentle with her, too. She's exhausted and wired, devastated and elated. She doesn't want her sibling to fear her like their dad did. She has to believe there's more to this gentility than that. It's in Klaus' voice, Allison's face, the way they both embrace her like a sister. Finally. Finally.

Klaus kisses her forehead and gently redirects her to pull her down and in on the sofa. The panic is easing. She feels the way she did when Klaus climbed into Sissy's car and stayed there. Ben's gentle, vital encouragement started a storm of righteousness in her. She was able to give Klaus closure, and in return Klaus started an avalanche of kindness and unity that literally saved the world. She owes him - all of them - everything.

"Thank you." She wants to pull her knees up to her chest, but she's not about to put her shoes on their furniture. Instead, she leans against her brother and allows his easy affection and gentle reassurance to take off some of the edge. She's a little more resigned when she says, "this place is exhausting." She's only been there a few hours and that's a vast understatement.

[terriblymisguided]

"You don't know the half of it," Klaus says with a tired laugh of his own, letting his fingers glide through Vanya's hair to brush it from her shoulder. He leans forward to grab his glass of whiskey from the table, and then pulls himself up onto the sofa so that he can turn to the side to face Vanya, resting his elbow on the back of the sofa. He lets his arm curl around her shoulders and takes a sip from the glass before offering it to Vanya. A few sips can only help calm her down.

"Allison took you to get your packet and everything?" Klaus asks, secretly very relieved that he wasn't the one to find her. He had just done that with Allison, and probably didn't do a very good job at all. She was the better person to explain all of this to Vanya, Klaus thinks, even if she's still pretty new to it herself.

[fifthbeatle]

The complicated history of Klaus and alcohol means Vanya's always going to be a little worried about what Klaus puts into his body. She doesn't presume to judge and has no room to. She hasn't been living with the responsibility of powers very long and she is... not great at it, to say the least. Their father's cruelty isolated them in a lot of ways. No one else understood that like Klaus did. Vanya's escape wasn't voluntary, but knowing everything she knows, deep down she's grateful she didn't have to feel any of that. If she had been given the choice, maybe she'd have numbed herself, too.

"Thanks," she says again. She takes the glass in both hands and takes a small sip. Then a larger one.

Klaus settles in and Vanya follows. Emboldened by her brother's ease, she toes off her shoes. Her legs curl up between them, her socked feet half-under her. She can stretch her arm out neatly on the back of the couch and lay her head there without displacing his gentle hold.

"No, not yet. We started talking. Then it got so late that I don't think either of us wanted to bother." A breath of a chuckle spills out of her at this. What a familial thing to say: they stayed up all night talking. It's been literal days since Vanya slept (between the tensions at the farm and being tortured by the FBI and the time travel...) and her mind might be halfway drunk already. "I'll go to the train station when it's light out. If you don't mind, I'd like to stay here for a little while longer." He certainly doesn't seem to mind and that's magic, too.

[terriblymisguided]

Klaus smiles softly as she takes a big drink, and then accepts the glass and downs the rest of it before setting the empty glass on the table. He's vaguely tipsy but nowhere near drunk. He had been thinking about getting there so he could maybe sleep, but now he's glad that he didn't, because Vanya's here.

"Of course. You can stay here for as long as you want," Klaus tells her, curling an arm around her shoulders and bringing her in to press a kiss to her forehead. He has always loved Vanya, but now he knows how badly he got that across when they were kids. He was so wrapped up in his own stuff, all his confusion and fear, trying so hard to prove himself to their dad. But still, he could have been better. And now he will be.

"I'll go with you in the morning, okay? You don't have to go alone," he assures her. "I have no idea where Five is, but maybe we can all go together. Get some breakfast somewhere."

[fifthbeatle]

"You don't have to do that," Vanya says gently. She's nowhere near ready to sleep, but she's starting to feel like it's a possibility in the near future. Her little heart wants to explode. A faint smile stays is stuck at the sides of her mouth. She can't be too mournful for a past that might have been right now - not when she's fresh off saving the world (and Harlan) with her family. The strangeness of this new place is offset by Allison's fearless shared strength and Klaus' gentle brotherly affection.

"I'd love that." She's beaming quietly again, stuck on the comfort that takes no time to settle between them. "Can we invite Allison?" It seems like a dumb question as soon as she asks it, but even tucked in and feeling like she belongs, there's a muscle memory of apologetic loneliness that will take much longer than an evening to unpack.

Since her hand is near there anyway, she plays with the ends of Klaus' hair for a second. "Your hair is so long." Allison said Klaus has been here a couple months. That makes sense. Klaus' hair has always grown fast.

[terriblymisguided]

"Allison is a part of everyone," Klaus assures her, marveling once again over the fact that he now has both of his sisters here. "I can't believe there are four of us here now. And the best four, even."

His smile flickers at that, because he can't help but to think of Ben, and he swallows hard before letting himself be distracted by her touching at his hair. "Yeah, I've been meaning to get it trimmed, but I do like it long. Makes me look quite glamorous, I think."

He tosses his hair over one shoulder with a smile, snapping his fingers and wiggling his hips a bit before settling again. "Maybe I'll ask Allison to cut it for me."

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya certainly doesn't think of herself as being in the top four of the Hargreeves siblings, and she doesn't think Klaus does either, though she appreciates the thought. She's sure he's thinking of Ben because she is, too. Now that she's gotten to talk to him and hug him, it's hard to be without him again. This must be a million times harder for Klaus, who apparently had him along for the ride half of his life.

"It looks good," Vanya says with a bright, gentle smile. "I like it." Her fingers play a little bit longer with the ends of his hair.

"Are things... are you okay here?" She asks, though that's not quite what she means to ask. She gives the space of a breath to try and recalibrate. "It must be hard. Without Ben." He was only with her for a short time and he literally saved her. There was a hole when he left just after a few moments. And it's her fault he's gone.

[terriblymisguided]

Klaus is ready to tell Vanya that he's fine, that sometimes he thinks that he's actually doing pretty okay, but then she says Ben's name and it's like a punch to the stomach. He told Five what happened back when he got here, and he's had a few conversations about Obi-Wan about Ben, but mostly he's dealt with Ben's loss on his own.

The smile fades from his face and he swallows hard, fingers twitching towards his glass before he realizes that it's empty. He takes a breath and looks at Vanya again, smiling tightly.

"It is hard," he admits in a thick sort of voice, nodding a bit as he squeezes Vanya's shoulder. His jaw works for a moment and then he laughs at himself, soft and breathless as his eyes sting, but don't well up. "I didn't realize how much I would miss him being a huge buzzkill all the time."

[fifthbeatle]

Instantly, Vanya regrets this. It's her fault Ben isn't around anymore. Most of her is still not capable of seeing how everything that happened in Dallas isn't her fault. She ended the world, she couldn't control herself, didn't know enough about herself to be able to withstand the trauma and torture. Even the things she couldn't remember in her head was present in her body, or she'd never have been able to rescue Harlan. The words of their dad from that awful acid trip are in her head. She didn't want to remember. She wasn't strong enough, and it almost cost her the entire world. Twice.

At least it makes her want to be stronger now. It's been a couple hours, but she's apologized herself silly to Allison. She doesn't want to keep apologizing for her existence, but when Ben traded what was left of his life for hers that seems like a worthy reason to apologize. However, this isn't about her.

Vanya picks her head up from where its been resting atop her arm on the couch.

"Come here," she instructs gently. She shifts herself away just a bit, but only to slip her arm little arm around him and pull him to her. He'll have to readjust, too and that's okay if he wants to pull away. She'll make herself understand. She just wants to be there for him, like Ben was there for her. For both of them.

[terriblymisguided]

"I'm okay, Vanny," Klaus assures her, because this is about her. She's the one who just showed up in Darrow, the one who just went through so much upheaval, whereas Klaus has had over two months to process it all. That isn't to say that he has actually processed it, but he's had the time.

That, and if he opens those floodgates even the slightest bit, he thinks he may not be able to shut them. If he cries one tear, he'll cry them all, and he doesn't want that.

Still, he does curl over to put his head on her shoulder, because he doesn't have it in him to turn down the offer of physical affection from any of his siblings, especially Vanya, who probably needs it even more than he does.

[fifthbeatle]

"I know," she says softly, because of course he is, or of course he will say he is. Vanya's not good with being the focus of things without her violin. It's something she wanted and was never granted and grew to reset. Thanks to the malignant tutelage of "Leonard," this feels has been complicated further. Even the love she's always wanted doesn't feel right. Nothing does, because in Vanya's hands, even the gentlest of sound is an atomic bomb. At no point has she had the time or space to deal with that.

So, maybe it's easier to talk about Ben. She's used to feeling like she's robbed her siblings of comfort, but that's not what she wants. She doesn't know exactly what she does want, but it's not that.

So, Vanya leans her head against her brother's. An arm curls around his head gently to go back to touching through his hair. In an effort to do some of the searching she needs to while Klaus is here, she tries to say something - anything - but she's stuck.

[terriblymisguided]

"This would make him happy," Klaus says after a long moment, smiling softly as he presses a kiss to her temple. "Us being together like this. He was always so damn soft-hearted."

He laughs fondly and wraps both of his arms around Vanya, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he rests his chin on top of her head. The emptiness in his mind that was once occupied by Ben buzzes loudly, as it sometimes does, and he blows out a breath as he waits for it to quiet down again. That buzzing turns into a desperate need for another drink, or something to smoke, fingers twitching with need.

Instead, he just holds onto Vanya, grateful that she's here and whole and safe, and that they have the chance for this long overdue time together.

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya's nose wrinkles happily. She rests her head on her brother's chest and settles in. While she doesn't know that Klaus is itching for something that dulls, she is receiving such a steady stream of unfamiliar affection that she has to imagine he's feeling whatever the Klaus version is of this urgent need for connection and comfort. Something like safety, maybe.

"He looked handsome all grown up," Vanya muses, tight in her chest about this, as well. "Must be those strong Hargreeves genetics." She is smiling now, chuckling just a little.

[terriblymisguided]

"Or my very generous haunted brain," Klaus says with a laugh, staring sort of blankly ahead as he runs his fingers through Vanya's hair. "At least I think it was me. It felt strange to grow up while he didn't, so I imagined him growing up with me."

It feels strange to talk about his powers like this around any of his siblings, and his brow furrows a bit as he continues to card his fingers through Vanya's hair. "Or maybe I had very little to do with it at all. I wasn't lying when I said all my siblings were hot."

[fifthbeatle]

She smiles quietly. Really, she hadn't thought about the idea Klaus' mind might have sculpted a projection of what Ben might look like. No matter how it happened, Vanya had recognized him immediately - his gentle eyes and soft speech. Now that Klaus mentions it, she supposes he is a good-looking ghost man. Was.

"And damaged," Vanya adds with a little laugh. "Some people go for that." Maybe Vanya is one of them. Maybe Sissy is. Was.

The arm around her brother tightens a little. The other stays curled loosely against her chest.

[terriblymisguided]

"Ah, the best kind of hot. Damaged people are always better in bed, anyway," he says, and he's only half-joking. Klaus keeps his arm draped around her, and then kisses her temple again.

"Do you want to try to get some sleep?" Klaus asks her, because she must be tired after all she's been through, and using her powers like that. "You can take the couch. Or-- or come crash with me, if you want. I have a very luxurious queen size bed that takes up most of the room. You're welcome to half."

[fifthbeatle]

In a couple of the easy silences, Vanya has nearly fallen asleep already. She's warm and she feels safe. She wonders if she should go back to Allison's, but she doesn't have a way to get back in.

She takes a while to answer, but when she does, she lifts her head up to look at Klaus.

"If you're really sure you don't mind," Vanya says softly. Her eyes flick back down because she can't bear to be looking at him when she adds, "I would really like the company." Asking for what she wants is hard, but not as hard as the confusion that seems to come with having any idea what she might want in the first place.

[terriblymisguided]

"I'm really very sure," Klaus tells her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before pushing himself off of the sofa. "Come on."

Usually, he leaves Five's bedroom alone. That's his space, and Klaus respects that, but he also has nothing for Vanya to sleep in, so he makes quick work and slipping in to grab a pair of his fancy actual pajamas from Five's dresser. He doesn't think that Five would mind, maybe for Klas, but not for Vanya.

"Here, you can wear Five's little jammies," Klaus says, handing them over and pointing to the restroom before heading into his room at the end of the hall, glancing around to make sure that there's nothing terribly untoward laying out.

[fifthbeatle]

With the smallest of restrained smiles pulled over what wants to be the biggest, Vanya pushes herself up, too and follows Klaus down the hallway. For a brief moment, she has the urge to jump on Klaus' back and hang there, but she's half out of her mind with exhaustion and is pretty eager to not rock the boat. Putting on some fresh clothes also doesn't sound like a terrible idea.

She thanks Klaus again and closes the bathroom door behind her. The whole building has a creepy wooden vibe. It feels like a place ghosts might be. She hopes she's wrong. Klaus deserves a chance at being sober. With their father gone and the world far away, it would be cruel for him to have to live in a place that would make the choice to be sober that much harder to make.

When she emerges, she's in a pair of Five's crisp, matching pajamas. It's been several hours, but her socks are still drenched from the snow, so she shirks them and pads into Klaus' room barefoot. The pile of her clothes is neatly folded, and she sets them down on a surface. Then, she holds up her hands. In Five's nightshirt, she has no hands: just 4 extra inches of shirt.

"Who has limbs this long?" She kind of flails the hollow sleeves that go past her hands. It makes her laugh, the sound bizarre to her. She's so tired, she realizes. And sad. She misses Sissy and Harlan. And she's terrified. When she wakes up in the morning, she has to start a life as Vanya Hargreeves: Powered Individual with a Memory. What does that even look like?

[terriblymisguided]

The building is haunted, deeply so, but Klaus is getting used to it. None of the spirits seem particularly vengeful, but they do both him at night. He's not sure that they can help themselves, not when he's asleep.

Even now, Klaus can feel a spirit lingering nearby, maybe the next apartment over. It's getting closer and Klaus stares at his empty bedroom wall. Not tonight, he thinks as hard as he can, and thankfully it sees, to listen. He only looks away when Vanya comes in, feeling his expression shift into a smile at the sight of her in pajamas.

"Teenage boys," he says easily, and since he doesn't really have pajama pants, he undresses down to a tee-shirt and his boxer briefs before climbing into the side of his bed closest to the door, giving Vanya the safer spot. Which is kind of ridiculous, he realizes. He spent so long of thinking of Vanya as someone ordinary, someone to be protected, when really she's stronger than all of them put together.

"Come on," he tells her, patting the other side of the bed as he takes in the unsure look on her face. "Get some sleep, and you can start in the morning."

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya knows that look. A spirit is calling to Klaus in the silence. She doesn't say anything, but her lips twitch in sympathy. She's afraid in silence, too. It's why she was so relieved Allison had asked her to stay and why she'd found herself up at her brothers' in the first place.

Maybe she could help him. If she can manipulate sound energy, maybe she can create some kind of protection. She wants to try, but she's exhausted and afraid of what making a mistake in trying would look like. She wants to. She will, but not tonight.

Klaus has recognized her silent struggle in return, and that makes her smile just a little. Two siblings on equal ground recognizing each other from literally across time. May she never stop being grateful.

Vanya kicks her legs between the blankets and settles in. She props herself up on her elbows. She says, "I haven't slept. I mean, since... I've had powers. I guess I slept at Sissy's before I knew, but. Since I've known." What is she trying to say? It's hard to find words for feeling she has no capacity to understand. It takes her a second to figure it out.

"I'm scared."

[terriblymisguided]

"Then you must be tired," Klaus tells her with an understanding smile. If there is anyone that understands fearing sleep because of their powers, it's him. Maybe he should be nervous by that raw power within her, but Klaus saw how she handled herself at that disastrous dinner with their father, and that that barn.

"You're stronger than you think." He tugs on her elbow until she falls onto her back, and he pauses for a moment before continuing. "Stronger than any of us ever gave you credit for. You've got this."

With a soft smile, he lifts his arm in invitation. "But you can still be the little spoon, if you want."

[fifthbeatle]

Just like that, Vanya is disarmed. As Klaus welcomingly bullies her toward sleep, she sees what she saw in Sissy's car in Texas: affection from her brother. Maybe it was always there, but Vanya couldn't see it, like so many other things. They've been through a lot. Vanya published a book with secrets that hurt each of them, and she still doesn't enough self-awareness yet to figure out why.

"I don't want to be," she says, tears stinging at her eyes. She's on her back, now and she swipes at her eyes with the long sleeves of Five's PJ shirt. Klaus continues, and Vanya drops her hands, looking up at him and letting his works sink comfort into her. She reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear. "Thank you." It's not long before she's smiling.

"You bet your ass I'm the little spoon," Vanya murmurs. Now she's beaming so wide that she's low-key embarrassed by it, so she rolls onto her side and grabs Klaus' arm around her.

[terriblymisguided]

"Yeah, but us Hargreeves don't exactly have a choice," Klaus tells her, realizing as it says it that that's what they are now. No Umbrella Academy, no rankings. Just family, and Vanya is a part of that in a way no one ever really allowed her to be before.

She reaches up to touch him, and Klaus smiles as she thanks him, feeling a little proud that he's been able to help her, that he's done something right.

When she turns away from him, Klaus rolls back to turn off his lamp and then curls up behind his sister, smiling as she yanks his arm around her. They've never done anything like this before, but Klaus can only imagination that she craves physical affection just as much as he does, so he just settles in behind her and puts his head on the pillow, closing his eyes and, perhaps most surprisingly, settling into sleep along with her.

[fifthbeatle]

For several moments, she keeps Klaus' arm in a loose grip, two gently closed fists curled in toward her chest. It's almost like she's hiding there for a minute. What Klaus said is bouncing around in her mind. Hargreeves don't get to choose strength. For whatever reason, it was chosen for them. Whatever it is that binds them - the power or magic or technology that propelled them into being on October 1, 1989 - it chose them before their father did. Reginald Hargreeves wasn't what made them special, and it isn't their powers that make them stronger. It's them. The Hargreeves are strong because of each other.

"Klaus?" Vanya pipes up quietly, hopefully quiet enough that she wouldn't wake him if he's already sleeping. She doubts he's had any such luck. It's just that she wants to say thank you over and over and over again, but it never feels like enough and if she waits too much longer, the courage might be gone. She says softly, "I love you."

A few seconds of terrifying silence pass in which Vanya realizes that his breathing has lulled. The next breath comes in a deep, heavy wave. Klaus is asleep and that feels almost as good as saying it back. She's pretty tired herself, but she tunes into his breathing for a few more rises and falls, gently shifting the energy around them in a little orb. Vanya isn't going to risk holding it too long, but she's hoping that (assuming she's doing this right and she can keep sounds around them vibrating away) Klaus will get deep enough into his sleep that he can't be disturbed at all tonight. She hasn't even counted four breaths before the ever-present pitch tunes itself out and Vanya is asleep,too. Her chest glows a warm, blue nightlight that fades to dark and, finally, silence.