After All This Time

Chapter Thirty

Dad burst through the doors holding a notepad, and a book with a RH on the front on it, standing for Reginald Hargreeves. Despite the fact that he was 60 years younger... he still looked the same. But with brown hair and less wrinkles. And of course, his infamous monocle, I guess some things never change.

All of our eyes followed him as he made his way around the table, and to a seat, none of us dared to say a word. He put down his things on the table across from Five and I, next to Luther, and sat down. The rest of my siblings walked to open chairs, I sat down in mine and Five sat next to me.

"Not only have you burglarized my lab, set my chimp loose, conned your way into the Mexican consulate, repeatedly stalked and attacked me, but you have, on numerous occasions, called me..." Even when he was young, Dad still sounded the same.

Klaus stumbled into a chair next to him with a martini in his hand. "Hey, Pop. How's it hangin'?"

"...Dad." He finished. "My reconnaissance tells me you're not CIA, not KGB, certainly not MI5, so..." He slammed his pencil on the table. "who are you?"

Everybody looked at Dad and opened their mouths like they were going to speak, but nobody said a word.

"We're your children." Five spoke up. "We're from the future."

Dad looked confused, but also fascinated about what the boy was telling him.

"In 1989," Five continued. "You adopted us all and trained us to fight against the end of the world."

I straightened my posture as Dad looked around the table at all of us. "You called us all the Umbrella Academy." I said.

Klaus soluted his drink in the air.

"Why on earth would I adopt seven-"

"Eight." Allison interrupted. "One of us isn't here."

"Dead. One of us is dead." Diego said.

Klaus started moving his hands and looking behind him. "Yeah, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Enough of that now."

I knew that Klaus was talking to Ben, and I felt bad so I spoke up. "He is dead, but here. Listening to all of us, I presume behind Klaus." I said.

Everybody looked at me with their eyebrows furrowed.

"Regardless, what would possess me to adopt eight ill-mannered malcontents?"

"We all have special abilities." Five said.

"Special? In what sense?" Dad queried.

Luther spoke up. "In the superpower sense."

"Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a stickler for a pesky little thing called evidence. Show me."

Allison picked up a pina colada in front of her and stirred it with her straw. "Everybody wants to see powers all of a sudden."

"We're not circus animals, okay? We're not gonna bounce balls on our noses and clap our hands like seals for your amusement."

Diego grabbed one of his knives and threw it towards Vanya, and then curving for Dad, flying right past his ear. Diego would never miss a chance to prove Luther wrong, or just piss him off.