PYROMANIAC - (Umbrella Academy) X Five Hargreeves

2:1

When Lena Flores landed in Dallas, Texas, bleeding out from the gash across her back - she landed in an alleyway in the middle of the night and hit concrete.

Unable to move, barely awake, she wasn't found until an hour later when the nervous neighbour watching from his window finally called 911. He hadn't gone down there himself, too caught up with how she had just appeared from nowhere and whatever that could mean, and like the others before her - he just expected her to yell a little and find her way.

That had evidently not happened.

The next time Lena awoke she was in a hospital bed hooked up to wires and fluids, lying on her side in an awful blue gown, bandages wrapped around her upper body. Groggy from heaps of pain medication running through her system, she found her facial wounds were thinner and the stitches long gone along with the one at the back of her head. Which made her question how long she had been out.

Coming to find out she was a Jane Doe in the middle of Texas - somewhere she had only ever been to once, right before her and Five spacial jumped to 2019 (and had never really intended on visiting again) - her first thought really was what the fuck.

But things kept getting worse and she was starting to think that it was the drugs in her system - apparently she had been out for coming up to a month - but given the fact Five was no where to be seen, nor had any doctor or nurse seen anyone of his description around the hospital - she knew it was very real and very, very wrong.

Not to mention it was evidently not 2019, but 1962, and people of colour like her were not particularly treated equally in that time.

So when the doctors began discussing her discharge she had lied about having a home to go back to, claiming she lived with her sister who was away at university studying medicine - so of course she would have someone to look after her when she returned.

And as they were getting the papers together to release her, Lena stole her belongings back, changed into her old blood stained clothes and slipped out the fire exit before anyone could slap her with the medical bill for the extensive treatment she had had. (She had called herself Marta Hernandez, the name of a woman she had killed in 1806 and for some reason remembered, knowing she could not get traced from it.)

What transpired over the next few months was a little complicated.

In searching for her husband, she had caused just a few incidents that may have involved fire and if anyone were to ask - yes, they were accidents.

And if you were a cop asking - no hablo Inglés.

Finding a job as a young, heavily tattooed Hispanic woman was difficult given the decade - which meant quickly, her patience for entitled white men and intolerant white women depleted as they continued to test her already fiery temper.

And so, after quite a few run ins with the law and bigots who got what they deserved around the city, she finally earned herself a one way ticket to a psychiatric hospital. (Not jail, although the Dallas police force had certainly wanted her locked up given the months long chase she had caused.)

So she had set fire to a couple of racist assholes welcome mats, big deal? What did she care if they didn't notice in time and half their living room had been destroyed by the blaze? It was their fault for being so unobservant.

Ok, so it wasn't the only thing she had done.

And it wasn't the only racist asshole she had put in place. Half of them she had gotten away with, the other half - let's just say she was a bit emotionally compromised without her husband, and so wasn't as efficient as usual - so she had had some trouble with the law.

When she had her belongings taken by the cops, who had been way too rough and probably enjoyed causing her pain, she hadn't exactly gone quietly.

The cops already didn't like her, so when she had freaked out at being restrained and held in the back of a very cramped police car (which in hindsight was definitely a trauma response to what the commission had done to her), it was safe to say they were keen to get rid of her.

They labelled her as violent because she had nearly kicked through the main console of the car, and the hospital were quick to slap her file with the label 'female hysteria', right next to 'pyromaniac.'

She didn't know whether to be offended or proud.

And Lena certainly didn't expect to see a familiar face at the facility she was being held, but when she did, she was almost glad that she had been taken in.

Almost.