8 ○ Umbrella Academy

Rewritten

"Woah, hold the phone. We all died the first time around, remember?" Klaus checked.

"Klaus shockingly has a point," Diego agreed. I still sat on the couch while everyone congregated at the bar, my head was starting to pound. "What gives us a win this time?" There was heavy sound pressure in the room, like when you crack open only one car window going fast down a highway, drawing my attention to the small vortex that soon after opening, dropped out Five onto the bar and closed just as quickly.

"Je-- Jesus!" Allison exclaimed, jumping even further as I put my hands on her shoulders to keep her from walking back into me. I hadn't even noticed me stand, I'd done it so instinctively. Five was clutching to a briefcase, breathing hard as the smoke that came with him from the vortex slowly dissipated.

"Am I still high, or do you see him, too?" Klaus wondered aloud, not having moved from where he was thrown back into the couch.

"You're not high," I informed with a sigh, his mind mostly coherent.

I moved forward when Five hadn't moved and it was good I had, because he rolled off the bar like an escaped egg, the same moment Luther went to scold him. I caught Five under the shoulders, unable to lift him so just holding him there until he got his own feet under himself. "You alright?" I asked gently. It wasn't as easy to pick out time travel in his mind as it had been Klaus', not with all the extensive time he was away and with all the time jumps required of a temporal assassin.

"Who did this?" Luther instantly switched up, which I was grateful for.

"Irrelevant," Five grumbled, shaking me off and taking Allison's coffee from her hands. He walked a couple steps forward and began chugging the coffee, so to aid the mass confusion caused now, and my own curiosity, I leaned against the bar in prep and opened up Five's filing cabinet.

It wasn't like his was longer than anyone elses'. No, if anything, his drawer was overcrowded, with papers sticking out no matter how you closed it again, no matter how hard you tried to stuff, there was no room for cramming things back in. He'd lived through today already, if it was really today -- the scene around him had much of a 50's vibe to it -- and he'd gone and screwed his former employer over.

By the time I slammed the drawer shut, I had a white knuckle grip on the edge of the bar and there was a hand on the middle of my back, slowly running random patterns into my shirt. I shot Diego a mental thanks and rubbed my temple hard, his hand still lingering. "So, the apocalypse is in three days," Five breathed as he turned back to us. "The only chance we have to save our world is, well, us."

"The Umbrella Academy," Luther grumbled in triumph. Despite the low monotone of it, he almost sounded as excited as a cheerleader for a prep rally. He really wanted us to go back to the old days.

"Yeah, but with me, obviously," Five snarked. "So if y'all don't get your sideshow acts together and get over yourselves, we're screwed." I moved my hand to get a proper look at his soot covered face, frowning deeply. As if a sixty year old man inside a thirteen year old's body didn't qualify as sideshow. "Who cares if Dad messed us up? Are we gunna let that define us?" My eyes drifted to Klaus, the walking definition of 'gay disaster' and turned back to Five with a soft shrug.

"No," Five argued in a soft tone, and I couldn't help but smile at the way Klaus was the only one to shake his head. "And to give us a fighting chance to see next week, I came back with a lead," he informed, holding a folded slip of paper. "I know who's responsible for the apocalypse." Diego's hand slid across my back and he came around the bar as Allison stepped forward and took the paper. "This is who we have to stop."

Upon unfolding it, there were simple and vaguely scattered words on the paper, the only ones I found held importance was that it was sent to Hazel and Cha-Cha, the order - Reassignment: Protect Harold Jenkins. "Who the hell is Harold Jenkins?" Diego asked from beside me. I had the instinct to grab his hand, but I stood on his left side, with his bad arm.