Carolina Rose

Reassembled (1)

Third Pov

"And as for your other questions, Luthor, I was taken away by my birth mother, but I escaped and found Five. We've stayed together ever since." Lina answered nonchalantly, taking a handful of marshmallows from the package along with her grilled cheese.

Five laid out the bread on the wooden block, Lina slathering one piece with peanut butter as Five placed marshmallows on the other. It was obvious that the two were very used to being with each other, as they were perfectly and strangely in sync.

"Wait, so, are we not going to talk about what just happened?" Luthor asked again, glancing the two young teens questionably.

"It's been seventeen years." He continued.

At Luthor's words, Lina and Five both scoffed lightly.

"It's been a lot longer than that." Five retorted, spatial jumping to the cupboards to look for something else.

"Where'd you go?" Diego asked, looking at Five, then Lina.

"The future. It's shit, by the way." Five answered, Lina silently enjoying her grilled cheese.

"Called it," Klaus announced loudly.

"I should've listened to the old man. You know, jumping through space is one thing-"

"But jumping through time is a toss of the dice," Lina said, finishing Five's sentence.

"How did you two get back?" Vanya questioned.

"In the end, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time. Lina helped a lot with her force field manipulation." Five replied, making his second sandwich.

"That makes no sense," Diego muttered.

"It would if you were smarter," Lina commented, bringing surprise to the group.

"Geez, Ro-ro. Marriage life changed you, didn't it? Five rubbed off on you a lot. You're all feisty and mean now." Kalus stated, making Five smirk.

"Although I did take part in her transformation, most of it was already done when I met up with her." Five explained, giving Lina a bittersweet, soft smile.

"...How long were you there?" Luthor asked.

"Forty-five years, give or take. I joined him about six months after he skipped into the future." Lina answered, returning Five's smile.

"So what are you two saying? That you're both fifty-eight?"

"No, our consciousness is fifty-eight. But our body seems to have reverted to our thirteen-year-old state." Five stated in a casual tone, as though everything as normal.

"How does that even work?" Vanya asked.

"Delores kept saying that the equations were off. You said that it felt a little off. Eh." Five said, giving Lina a shrug.

"...Delores?" The other siblings questioned.

"I bet that she's laughing right now. But hey, we're back and we're together. That's honestly all that matters to me right now," Lina stated, laughing lightly as she finished off her grilled cheese.

"Guess we missed the funeral," Five uttered, handing today's newspaper to Lina.

"City says goodbye to Reginald Hargreeves... how unfortunate," Lina said, not a shred of remorse or emotion in her voice.

"Hey, where do you guys keep your gin around here? Are all the alcohol still put in the same place? It's nice to see that nothing's changed here, by the way." Lina continued, setting the newspaper down onto the kitchen table.

"Uh, that's it? That's all you two have to say? That you've been married for almost fifty years, stuck in the future? And that it's typical for you to have missed Dad's funeral?" Allison butted in.

"What else is there to say?" Five retorted.

"It's the circle of life." Lina shrugged.

The two young teens left the kitchen and headed to Five's personal room, leaving the rest of the Hargreeves siblings to process the plethora of information that they'd thrown at them. The first thing that Five did when the two of them arrived in his room was to throw open his closet.

Unsurprisingly, the sight that greeted the two young teens was a closet full of the Umbrella Academy uniform. Lina laughed loudly at Five's annoyed face, yelling like a crazy person.

"Ah, shit." Five mumbled, the realization dawning on him.

"HA!! I TOLD YOU SO!!"

"Shut up. You're not a kid, Lina. And don't say that. It reminds me of... Dad."

"Well, technically, we are kids. We're what, thirteen? ...And if you really don't want me saying it, then I won't."

"Thanks."

"No problem, handsome."

Five snickered at the familiar nickname and picked a random uniform out of the identical ones sitting in his closet. Then he turned back to Lina with a slightly confused look.

"Wait, if we're physically thirteen, then it's technically illegal for us to have Fun Fridays now, right?"

"Hm? ...Oh, yeah. Fuck. We'll have to wait five years. But then again... that didn't stop us back then, so why should that stop us now?"

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FuN FrIDaYs. Who can guess what those are?

2.5 pages, 814 words