A bend in space-time (Season 2) - The Umbrella Academy

Chapter 18: The ache for what never was

Chronological markers: this scene fits like a deleted scene from The Umbrella Academy, saison 2, episode 5, around 36:43 (after Klaus wakes up on Allison's kitchen floor and Five picks them up to meet at Eliott's, around the time of Klaus, Allison and Viktor's scene at the hair salon).

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Tuesday, November 19 1963, 01:25 pm

This time, I spent a dreamless night under the beams of Wayne Wilson's beetle-ridden house. With all accesses still sealed off, nothing has moved since my last visit three years ago: even the ouija board is still there, under the dust, the planchette lying right where my hand left it. Suddenly, nothing of what we've lived seems to have existed. Again, it's as if I'm picking up my life in the sixties exactly where it began.

There's one difference though: I'm not going to conjure up the old gardener, this time. All night long, and all through the morning that I spent thinking, I could sense he was here. Somewhere in the room, watching me, his spectral energy respectful and distant, no doubt worried about me. I think he's understood, this time, that I don't want him to go and fetch Klaus. And maybe I've been talking to myself a few times over the past hours, just so he'd hear my misadventures.

I feel he's very different from last time, through energy. More serene. Caring. Grateful. We won't be talking - this time - but I know that over the last few months he's been watching the flowers from the seeds in his satchel, opening one after the other. Right now, somewhere in the flowerbeds of Kitty's Mansion, they're blooming among the marigolds, in the autumn sunshine. I shudder, this morning, at Five's words, at the idea that a nuclear explosion is about to sweep them away. Those flowers, and all the people who live in this time, in spite of all its flaws.

I've made a resolution, as I woke up from yet another short nap: I'm going to get my stuff from the room above the workshop, at the Glen Oaks store. Today, Lloyd isn't there, and - after all - I don't need a key. I'll be breaking into a place that used to be my home, which is a first, but I don't feel any remorse about doing it. I don't have a lot of clothes, or really any personal belongings. But what little I do have, I want to keep with me.

And there's one last thing I have to do, over there, if I can.

I'm tired when I teleport outside, and my eyes hurt from crying too much yesterday. The sun is shining brightly as I set off towards Avon Street, in the midday atmosphere. More or less consciously and without being proud of it, I turn myself invisible to cross the street in front of the movie theater. I don't want to risk bumping into Allison, Luther, Diego or Viktor, if Five truly brings them all together today. Klaus even less, if they've finally managed to get him to come. Without Mark noticing, I pass his flat cardboards. I'm sorry about the way I treated him yesterday. And I promise myself I'll find a way to make it up to him.

Around the corner of the newsagent's, I make myself visible again as I turn into Glen Oaks street, struggling to convince myself that I'm not going to work. My stomach knots as I pass all those familiar places. Mason's plumbing supplies, the window renovator, the sullen florist across the street, the Katzes's hardware store. Merelec is closed, Lloyd is not there indeed. Through the window, I can see the television sets that imploded yesterday. And on the worktop, the coffee mug I'll never drink from again. I look left and right to make sure I'm not being watched.

*Crack!*

A blink, and I'm upstairs, my eyes reopening on the room where I've slept for months. Silence pierces me like never before. That of the closed balcony door, where I won't be having lunch with David anymore, of the little radio I won't ever turn on again. I glance at my glass of water on the bedside table, my jersey on the chair, the bag of cold tamales - untouched - on the table by the sofa. Everything in the room hurts. I close my eyes, taking a breath.