The Flood // the umbrella academy [Klaus]

t w e n t y . t w o

"I'll meet you both back there," Five stated as the trio exited the gym, immediately disappearing from view in a flash of blue light. 

Both Bea and Luther sighed, shaking their heads lightly at their brother's behaviour. "You think he can teleport other people but just chooses not to?" Luther pondered, beginning the trek with Bea walking beside him.

In response, Bea let out a short, breathy laugh, thinking over Luther's question. "It's Five; he can pretty much do anything he puts his mind to. I'm sure he could take us with him but it's probably a lot of effort. Especially since-"

"Don't say it," Luther stated, cutting her off. 

She looked up at him inquisitively. "Hmm? What did you think I was going to say?" she asked.

He shrugged, looking down at her. Anyone observing the pair would laugh at the comical difference in stature. "I don't know, something about the effort it would take to teleport someone as 'big as me'?" 

His response stopped Bea in her tracks. Physically. She stared at him with an incredulous expression, trying with difficulty to stop herself from laughing too hard. "I mean," she began, "I was going to comment on the fact that Five was blind drunk not too long ago and that it might have affected his powers." She paused, throwing a hand over her mouth as she failed to hold back the laughter any longer. "But good self-burn!"

Rolling his eyes at his own mistake, Luther resumed walking, prompting the redhead to have to jog a little in order to catch up with him. They were silent for a while, footsteps echoing on the pavement as they kept up the pace, side by side. For Bea, it was an unusual occurrence. Here she was, inches away from her childhood nemesis, feeling strangely content. She didn't feel like punching the daylight out of him, nor throwing petty jibes his way, or even flicking manifested water droplets at his face to piss him off like she did as a child. She had literally just laughed at his 'joke', something she never could have predicted would happen in a million years. It felt...good. Good to let the tension out of her body; good to not feel so much hate within herself. They weren't friends - that was still a long way off. She hadn't suddenly upped and forgiven him for every time he had bullied her as both a child and a teenager. But he had apologized and it felt so real, so legitimate and heartfelt. She saw the pain and the guilt on his face when he recounted the way he had behaved the last time they had seen each other before Reginald's death. That tied with the threat of the world ending solidified in her mind that enough was enough; she had made the decision to offer a truce and he had taken it. So, as she walked beside him, she felt calm.

Luther, on the other hand, felt awkward. She had laughed; yet it felt as though it were more with him than at him. This was Phoebe, the girl who he had never trusted, never liked, and persistently harassed for no real reason. Her confessions in the gym had deeply affected him and his apology was sincere. He recognized that she had understood that, considering her offer of peace between them. He was strangely happy that their feud was over. As much as he wanted to relax fully, however, he simply couldn't allow himself to. He had to remain on guard, especially since he knew what she was really capable of when she was angry. To him, she had the potential to be a ticking time bomb.

In reality, Luther wasn't aware of how much training Bea had done by herself over the last ten years. How she had practiced self-control every day in order to not accidentally lash out without meaning to. How strong she had really become.

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Around fifteen minutes after they first set off, Bea and Luther arrived back at the Academy, splitting up instantly. Bea entered the building first, wrenching the large front door open and racing upstairs to Klaus' room to check if he was there. Her shoes clattered against the tiles as she ran, creating a hollow sound that rang throughout the property. Out of breath, she arrived outside Klaus' door, noticing that it was already open. "Klaus?" she shouted, bursting through the open doorway. "Klaus?" she called again, to no avail. Spinning harshly on her heels she glanced down the corridor, seeing blood stains on the tiles that she swore were not there moments ago. Bea paled, heart dropping to her stomach. Slowly and silently, she followed the bloody footprints into the bathroom, letting out a small gasp at what she saw. The bathtub and surrounding tiles were wet, indicating that it had been in use relatively recently. On top of that there were bloody hand prints on the tub's edge. Could this have been Klaus? she thought. If the kidnappers had tortured him like she assumed they had, then he would have been covered in blood when he arrived back. She shuddered at the thought, heading out into the corridor once more. "Klaus!" she tried again, more frantically this time.