The Beating of Our Hearts Is the Only Sound

Chapter 5: It's Vanya

After showing Dave back to the clinic and making it down to one of the living rooms, Klaus was finally at the meeting. He was starting to get a little shaky and feeling a bit nauseated, but he ignored it so he could just get through the stupid spectacle. Everybody else was already there.

     "Alright, finally," Five said, pacing up and down the room. "It's Vanya."

     All of the others stared at him waiting for more.

     "What is?" Allison asked, finally breaking the silence. "Is she okay?"

     "She's fine, for now." Five said. "Vanya is..." he trailed off, looking at Luther cautiously. "She's a key part of the start of the apocalypse. But it will be simple to stop it."

     Luther didn't seem to notice the look, but was impatient as always. "What's that supposed to mean? What do we have to do?"

     "I'm getting there. She'll be here soon, and we have to tell her we were trying to contact her for a family meeting. I left a voicemail already, but she won't have had the chance to listen to it yet."

     Diego stood up, reaching towards Five. "Woah, slow down. I'm not following–"

     "That's because all of you are too stupid to understand the bigger picture without flipping your shit. So I'm giving you simple instructions that boil down to this: be nice to Vanya."

     He had barely gotten the sentence out before a timid "Hey."

     "Vanya, great," Five said, jumping on the plan immediately. "I tried to call you, we need to have a family meeting. Now we can start."

     Vanya was with a man Klaus hadn't seen before. She looked like she had just been thrown into a war zone, and he knew what that was like.

     "Who's this?" Five asked. He looked the man up and down, eventually staring him down in an eye-to-eye glare.

     "Oh! Guys, this is Leonard, my boyfriend. We wanted to–"

     "No time, no boyfriends. We already have one waiting upstairs, he can wait with him."

     Vanya looked at Allison and Klaus held in a laugh.

     "But–"

     "Vanya. It's a family meeting, family only." Five was getting impatient, but that was definitely normal.

     She clearly wanted more explanation, but the man spoke up. "It's fine," he said. "I'll wait upstairs, but don't forget the big announcement."

     Vanya smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "Thanks."

     As he walked away, Five opened his mouth to start talking again, but was interrupted by Allison.

     "What's the big announcement?" She looked worried.

     "Um," Vanya glanced back at where Leonard had walked off, but was clearly too excited to wait. "I got first chair. In the orchestra I'm in."

     There was a moment of slightly confused stillness before Allison rushed forward. "That's amazing, Vanya!" She wrapped her sister into a big hug, to Vanya's obvious surprise.

     Diego stared awkwardly. "That sounds great, but, what does that mean?"

     Vanya started to explain, but Allison took over. "It's the best position you can get in an orchestra! And since Vanya plays violin, she'll be front and center." She hesitated, looking at the other woman. "Right?"