Empathy [Ben Hargreeves]

Episode Five. Part I.

"Number Five"

After successfully getting out of the hospital and ditching Allison, Eloise found herself at Griddy's Doughnuts. Using a handful of crinkled bills from her jacket pocket, she bought herself a powdered donut that she had been craving for days. Agnes asked about Elle's black eye with concern, but the blonde waved it off and lowered her beanie to cover most of the damage.

Eloise was chomping away on her donut before she suddenly inhaled sharply. The feeling of her heart being ripped from her chest was like losing Ben all over again. But it wasn't her emotions: she knew that Klaus was back by his sparkling silver and blue aura, though the edges were darkened with atypical despair.

Standing from the bench outside of Griddy's, Elle searched around for the familiar face of Klaus. She found him, clutching a briefcase and sobbing hysterically, at the bus stop on the corner. "Klaus?" Elle called, worry squeezing the air from her lungs like a deflating balloon. "Klaus!"

Elle noted right away that the rebel Hargreeves looked different. His long untamed hair was now cropped on the sides with only curls on the top.

"What happened?" Elle asked softly when she had stepped onto the curb beside him. She knew that Klaus had gone through something when he disappeared, as he was feeling heartbroken and lost. 

Klaus glanced at her with sad puppy dog eyes that pulled painfully at her heartstrings. He physically removed himself from under her gentle touch and mumbled, "I don't want to talk to you."

He might as well have slapped her across the face. The two of them had always been thick as thieves. What had happened to Klaus? "But something--" she tried.

"There's nothing to talk about!"

Elle stepped back, hurt flashing across her face and lighting her eyes red. She inhaled sharply and let it out slowly. "Fine." She adjusted the scarf that Allison had loaned her and turned away. "Come find me if you change your mind."

Eloise walked back to the Umbrella Academy while Klaus had a meltdown on the street. He destroyed the briefcase that he stole from the kidnappers and broke down from the pain of heartbreak.

☆☆☆

Eloise spent the day idly sketching in a notepad that she found on the bookshelf in her room. Her head throbbed too much to do anything that required much thought, and the only light that she could stand to have on without getting a migraine was the lamp on her nightstand. She wished to be in her own bed, but she wouldn't sleep without knowing that Klaus was safe and stable.

A knock on wood had her bedroom door opening slowly to reveal a distraught Klaus. Elle sat up straighter, and with wide pale green eyes of burning curiosity, she took in the military dog tags that were a new addition around Klaus' neck. His look was so different: new tattoos on his arms, cropped hair, and army boots on his feet.

"Klaus?" Elle said softly.

That was all it took for Klaus to break down in Eloise's arms for the first time since they were teenagers. "I-I fell... in love," he wailed, his voice was thick with emotion. He sobbed in her ear as Elle gently led him across her room.

"Shh, shh. I've got you... Let it out."

They settled into Eloise's twin bed with his head resting on her chest. She gently ran her fingers through his cropped mop of curly hair as he cried. Between sniffles, Klaus started to fill her in on his time-traveling story of woe.

When Klaus had escaped through the vents of the motel in Calhoun, he had stolen the kidnappers' briefcase which he thought would have valuables inside. It turned out to be a time-traveling device that sent him back to the 1960s where he was recruited as an American soldier in an active war zone in Vietnam.

Though it felt like one night that Klaus was gone to Elle, for him -- it was an entire year in the A Shau Valley. In that time, Klaus fell in love with a fellow soldier named Dave who ended up being shot in the chest by an enemy's rogue bullet and dying in his arms. A piece of Klaus died with Dave that day in 1968, which put Ben's death to Elle in perspective for him.

Elle brushed her thumb back and forth against Klaus' temple in a calming way until he was finished speaking. She hadn't wanted to interrupt until he let it all out. "You are so strong, Klaus. You didn't deserve such a cruel fate for your love."

"The universe was punishing me for being selfish," the heartbroken Hargreeves croaked. His eyes were swollen and red -- not from drugs for once -- and his voice was thick with tears. "For only ever thinking about myself and loving drugs more than people."

"You loved me though." A rueful smile touched the blonde's lips before fading quickly.

"In the end, I lost you too." His voice cracked. 

"You never lost me, mon amour. I'm right here." Elle swiped a stray tear that ran down his ashen cheek. "I'm right here."

☆☆☆

"You're... you're not mad at me?" Klaus' soft voice broke the silence that the two had fallen in. Both had been lost in their own whirlwind of thoughts.

"Why in the world would I be mad at you, Klaus?" 

"Because I fell in love... with someone else." Klaus looked young and vulnerable. 

"It wasn't the same kind of love," Elle reminded him gently. "You and I, we loved each other, but we weren't in love. We were... in lust. We had each other when we were still discovering ourselves. We were what we needed at the time, and I still love you, of course, but--" Elle paused, unsure. She was going to say that she was still with Ben. Could she even say that anymore? Instead, she sighed and said, "We weren't meant to last. I couldn't satisfy all your needs, and we both knew it."

"But I still need you." Klaus pushed himself up so that he hovered over Elle before placing a light kiss on her eyebrow above her bruised eye. "We have something." He trailed his fingers down her cheek. "Please, take the pain away."

It took Elle a moment to gather what he was hinting at. She pushed his fingers away from her face and frowned. "You don't realize what you're asking." 

"I know what I'm asking. What's one more time?"

"Wow, way to sound like an addict." She scoffed and shook her head in disappointment. 

"Please?" he begged. "Make it go away. It hurts." His fist clenched against his chest where his heart ached inside.

"Dammit, Klaus, I'm not-- I'm not your rebound." Elle understood his need to feel a connection, but that didn't stop the flash of hurt that pricked at her own heart.

"I loved you first. You can make the pain go away."

"Klaus," Elle said sternly. She lifted his chin with a finger to direct his eyes to hers. "I'm not sleeping with you to make you feel better. You're upset and not in the right mind to make these decisions. Calm down. Get some sleep. We'll talk again later, okay?"

At his defeated nod, Eloise got up from her own bed and tucked him in under the covers. She would go next door to Ben's room to rest.

Brushing back the curls sticking to his forehead, Elle placed a kiss on his skin that was laced with sleep. Her concussed head only allowed for a low level of her ability to be transferred, but with his tired mind and broken heart, Klaus was out like a light.

~*~

This was one of my fave chapters to write, even though this is supposed to be a Ben/OC fanfic. I love the chemistry between Elle and Klaus.