GOLDEN ROSE • THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

CHAPTER FIVE

Five digs through the fridge in the kitchen, and we all sat around in confusion.

I shifted back to my adult self, hoping that no one else saw my slight falter, and sat on the counter top.

"What are you doing," Luther asks Five, and I was wondering why he was acting so nonchalant.

"Making a sandwich," Five starts. "Do you know how long it's been since I've had solid food?"

He slams the fridge shut. "You were gone for twenty-two years, Five," I begin to speak, but my tone is low and hesitant.

He looks at me, staring into my eyes and almost, just almost breaking his annoyed expression. "It's a lot longer than that Rose," he says.

He hops up on a chair to reach the shelf, and everyone is still staring at him in curiosity. "What happened to you?" Vanya asks.

"What do you think happened? I decided to test the limits of my time jumping, see how far I could go. Turns out, pretty far," he says agitated.

I sighed, leaning back on my hands. I missed Five, a lot. Even though we didn't have the best relationship as kids, Five didn't have the best relationship with anyone, I always found myself trying to appease him. Like if I had his approval everything was alright.

Though we would bicker and get on each other's nerves some times, I also found myself trusting his opinion more than anyone's in the entire world. Sometimes I wish he felt the same, then maybe he wouldn't have disappeared for so long.

"Dad always warned me not to go too
far into the future. On account of my jumps only working in one direction. This time, he was right." Five takes a bite of his new sandwich before saying, "Christ, I needed that."

Allison sits across from him and study's him for a moment, "then how did you get back?" She questioned.

With his mouthful, Five answers "By projecting my consciousness backwards into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists in every possible instance of time."

We all looked around to each other to see if anyone made sense of that, but to no avail we were all still flustered. "That makes no sense," Diego says.

"It would if you were smarter," Five shoots and I laugh under my breath. "Granted, it did take me a little time to work out all the nuts and bolts of it..."

"How long?" I ask, still my voice in almost a whisper.

He looks at me with kind eyes, ones I haven't seen in so long. "52 years, give or take."

My mouth dropped open. "Woah woah what? You're 62?" I asked in surprise.

"No, my consciousness is 62. My
body's still about 17," he says, but then looks to me. "I'm sure you understand."

I glare at him. "What do you mean?" Luther asks Five, but I continue to shoot daggers at him telling him to shut up.

"Look, all I'm saying is I'm not the only one who defied Dad here," he says glaring back at me.

"Shut it, Five," I said back, hoping everyone would drop it.

"What did you do?" Vanya asks me.

"It's not my fault, Dad never told me." I announced, but still held my cold stare.

"Told you what?" Allison asks, and everyone looks at me now.

I sighed, ugh am I really going to have to do this now. Taking a deep breath, I shifted into my natural form, "guess you're not the only one stuck in your sixteen year old body," I muttered to Five, and he sat back with a smirk. I sure hope he feels accomplished now.

Diego's eyes widen. "Wait what? You too? But how did that happen?"

"Shifting too often is strenuous on the body. When I was young I thought it was fun to mess around with you all, and I never understood why Dad would always tell me to stop. Guess I know why now," I said sadly, looking away from everyone.

I could feel their sympathetic eyes, and it was all quiet for a moment. At least until Klaus snorted with laughter, "oh! Now that is great!"

I rolled my eyes, but Five laughed too. "It is, isn't it?" He said trying to push my buttons. But we're not kids anymore, and I'm not gonna feed into it.

"Where's the old bastard anyway?" Five asks, thankfully shifting the attention from me.

"He died three days ago," Luther says.

"Well that complicates things."