SONG: Feels So Nice - The Wrecks

"What's the date? The exact date," said the boy who had dropped from the sky, Number Five was his name (yeah, I know, weird), and apparently he was their long lost brother, and another member of the Umbrella Academy, which was obviously pretty cool to me. He was currently in the midst of grabbing something from cabinets, and that thing just happened to be bread.

"The twenty fourth of March," I answered, a bit over-excitedly. This may have been everyday stuff for their family, or close to it, but this was the first time I'd ever even met anyone like me, and I was in a room with five people like that. My eagerness caught me a few stares, which was easy to do considering I was standing next to Vanya who was in the front of the group and sitting down. I looked at the group and my smile dropped, "Come on, it's not every day somebody falls from the sky!" they all looked away and seemed to shake off the weirdness of it. I felt somebody's hand gently hold my wrist and looked down to see it belonged to Vanya.

I heard Klaus sigh softly as nobody ran and looked at the two girls around us before taking his hand in mine. I saw him look down at our hands through my peripheral, but didn't move it, which he eventually came to terms with.

Vanya looked up at me as I shook the memory away and forced a smile her way. I wondered how she'd react knowing I snogged her brother(who was sitting criss-crossed on the table currently) only a few hours after meeting him at their family reunion for her father's death. One thing was for sure, it probably wouldn't be a good thing. I saw a look cross her face before she looked back at her newly returned brother.

"So, are we gonna talk about what just happened?" Luther asked, to which he earned some silence as Number Five laid out two pieces of the bread on a cutting board like he was going to make a sandwich. Luther, fed up with this behavior apparently, stood from his seat, "It's been seventeen years," his brother scoffed at him.

"It's been a lot longer than that," the kid said with as much attitude as you can pack into some 5'4 boy, staring down the much taller man. He then took one step closer to Luther as some kind of blue light appeared in front of him and he walked right through it, appearing on the other side of Luther on a step stool to get into a cabinet. My eyes widened. I knew he had powers, but that was cool!

"Awesome," I breathed out, watching him. It made me just kind of want to see the rest of them in action at least once. I felt Vanya drop her hand from my wrist.

"No, it's not. I haven't missed it one bit," Luther corrected me, to which I held up my hands in defense.

"Where'd you go?" Diego asked as Number Five dug through to get the correct ingredients that he wanted for his sandwich.

"The future," he answered, turning back and spacial jumping back to his spot at the table with marshmallows in his hand, "It's shit, by the way."

"Called it," Klaus exclaimed, raising his hand, to which I rolled my eyes.

"I should've listened to the old man," the boy in the oversized suit added as he now got into the fridge, "You know, jumping through space is one thing, jumping through time is a toss of the dice," he added, grabbing peanut butter and making his way back to his sandwich to put it on.

"Who keeps peanut butter in their fridge? Better yet, what kind of sandwich is peanut butter and marshmallows?" I asked, extremely confused by only those two events. Everything else I had a pretty decent grasp on right now.

"Who are you again?" Number Five asked with a voice that I could tell he was already bothered by my existence, though he seemed to have that voice when speaking to any of his siblings. My jaw dropped agape as I was taken aback by said question.

"Oh, uhm, I'm Luce. Luce Liddell. I'm Vanya's friend," I introduced myself with a short wave. I heard someone let out a quiet huff and funny thing was I couldn't tell if it was Diego or Klaus.

"Liddell, isn't that like Alice Pleasance Liddell?" he asked, spreading peanut butter on his sandwich. I opened my mouth, about to try and play it off as nothing before I got cut off.

"Who?" Klaus asked with confusion clear in his voice. Number Five paused, looked up at him, then shook his head.

"Nevermind," he shook it off. I held in an audible sigh, glad I didn't have to lie or act or anything like that. I was never the best at lying, simply because I hated doing it so I hardly did. Number Five looked back at Klaus once more, this time looking over his outfit, "Nice dress," he added.

"Oh, well, danke!" Klaus replied.

"Wait, how did you get back?" Vanya asked.

"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," he explained, which meant absolutely nothing to me.

"That makes no sense," Diego said what we were probably all thinking.

"Well, it would if you were smarter," Number Five retorted, causing Diego to jump up in rage. I bit my lip as a grin crossed my cheeks, looking down to my feet while Luther held Diego back from pummeling his brother.

"How long were you there?" Luther asked.

"Forty-five years, give or take," Five answered without taking his focus off his weird sandwich. Diego fell back as Luther dropped back to sit in his seat, taking in what his sibling just said. I wouldn't have believed the words if I hadn't seen the old man in the portal thing.

"So what are you saying? That you're fifty-eight?" Luther asked.

"No," Five said with a smile that showed a single dimple, finishing the creation of his sandwich, "my consciousness is fifty-eight. Apparently, my body is now thirteen again."

"That's weird, man," I spoke.

"Wait, how does that even work?" Vanya questioned.

"Delores kept saying the equations were off," he said as he walked to the corner of the room and faced away from us, taking a bite of his sandwich, "Bet she's laughing now," he added, turning back.

"Delores?" Vanya asked as Five finished the sandwich all too quickly. He then hummed as he noticed a newspaper sitting on the table, picking it up. It was one with Sir Reginald Hargreeves on the cover; I had seen it while dancing with Klaus, just didn't pay attention to it. I assumed it was about his death.

"Guess I missed the funeral."

"How'd you know about that?" Luther asked, causing me to mentally facepalm at his entire two brain cells.

"What part of the future do you not understand?" Five asked, once again, with incredible attitude, "Heart failure, huh?" He asked.

"Yeah," Diego said at the same time as Luther said, "No," Five hummed once more.

"Nice to see nothing's changed," he said, throwing the newspaper back down on the table, "Other than you, apparently," he added, nodding at me; then without another word, made his way past us all and to the door.

"That's it? That's all you have to say?" Allison asked after him.

"What else is there to say? The circle of life," he responded, walking out of the room and leaving us all sitting there like idiots.

"Well..." Luther trailed off with a scoff after a moment of silence as Klaus held his hands out, "That was interesting," he finished while Klaus clasped his open hands together and I rested a hand on Vanya's shoulder. I felt somewhat strange and like I was looking too deeply into Klaus, but he was just too intriguing, and seemingly much nicer than majority of his living family. The others left the table one by one until it was only me and Vanya left (to my knowledge at least).

"Vanya," I spoke slowly, and she looked up at me. I looked down at her, a stoic look on my face.

"I'm so sorry, Luce. I shouldn't have even invited you-" she stopped when I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug.

"This has been the most interesting and fun day of my life," I sighed happily as I nuzzled my face into her shoulder. She was tense, but slowly relaxed into the hug, wrapping her arms around me.

"I'm so glad you think so," I could almost feel her smile as the weight she seemed to be carrying through that entire conversation just up and left her body, but it was back before too long as she pulled back, her hands on my shoulders as she held me at arms length to look into my eyes, "Are you okay? I saw you zoning when I touched your wrist," she said, seeming worried about me. I opened my mouth to speak before shutting at, trying to think of a believable lie that wasn't really a lie to tell her.

"I..." I trailed off before forcing out a laugh, "Actually, I was just thinking about something. No need to worry," I waved it off as if it was nothing, which it really was, but I still didn't want to tell her.

"You know you can tell me, right? I'm here for you no matter what," she said with a small soft smile.

"I know, Vanya."

☂☂☂

We ended up deciding on a time(sundown) and place(door to yard with tree) to meet up at and Vanya and I split ways so she could speak to her brother in private. I was walking around and exploring the house, listening in and running into a few family members on the way. I eventually ran into Diego as he was exiting a room. He promptly looked at me, scoffed, turned away, and began walking.

"Diego, wait," I said. I honestly still wasn't sure if I liked him at all, but I didn't want any bad blood between me and Vanya's family. He stopped and turned to me, crossing his arms over his chest, "Look, I know that you don't like me, and I know you aren't Vanya's greatest fan ever since she wrote that book, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry if I overstepped my bounds by coming here today. It's just that... I've always been a bit of a fan of the umbrella academy, since I was younger, and I wanted to be here for Vanya, so when she invited me it was kind of a no brainer to come. I didn't even think about how personal it would be for you all," I explained in a ramble. I could tell he was taking in every word I was saying, "And... While we're talking I also wanted to say that Vanya's told me a lot about her family, and she still loves every single one of you," and that was the sentence he stopped listening on, letting out yet another scoff before turning around and walking away once more, only this time with a few words.

"You seem nice, Luce, but you still shouldn't have come. And if she loved all of us, she wouldn't have written that book exposing us," he said, walking down the stairs. I sighed and turned back in the direction I was initially coming from, past the room he had come out of and then beginning to pass another door before it opened and there stood Klaus.

"Do you happen to know the time?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Last I checked, like, 5:00?" I said in a questioning voice. He nodded.

"Sun downs at like 8 right? So we need to meet up with them at around 7?" he asked. I nodded as I thought about it.

"I'd assume so, but why?" I asked. He grinned at me, looked around the hall, then opened the door wider.

"Oh, no reason. I'm just thinking about continuing where we left off."

☂☂☂

I opened my eyes as my chest heaved up and down quickly, sweat dripping down my skin. Klaus collapsed beside me as I stared at the ceiling, where I was just staring at his face moments before. I let out a soft sigh, closing my eyes once more.

Holy shit, I really just did that. With him. Vanya's brother.

And enjoyed every second of it.

"Blimey," I muttered, turning on my side to face Klaus, who was just staring at me.

"Everything okay?" his eyebrows creased together in what looked like concern.

"No-I, I mean yes. I mean--Everything's fine," I stuttered, bringing my hands up to cover my face as if to hide my embarrassment, "I don't know what I mean," I muttered.

"You know, you're cute when you're nervous," he said softly, and I felt his finger twirl in my shoulder length strawberry blonde hair.

"How would you know I'm nervous?" I questioned, uncovering my eyes to see him chuckle.

"Isn't it obvious? You," he poked my nose softly, "Don't want somebody knowing about something that happened today, oh, I don't know, maybe two minutes ago," he cocked an eyebrow at me.

"So, you might be right," I mumbled, turning back over onto my back. He positioned himself on his elbow, looking down at me.

"Why does it matter?" he asked, to which I let out a short half-hearted laugh.

"Why does it matter? Because you and I just met and I'm her friend and she's your sister and I don't..." I stopped myself with a sigh.

"You don't what?" He asked, leaning down to kiss my forehead.

"I don't want her thinking I was only using her to get to you," I mumbled with a frown.

"Well, were you?" he asked, continuing to leave kisses all over my face.

"No! Of course not, but you know Vanya. She's so not trusting of anyone after the childhood she had."

"We all had poor childhoods, baby," he mumbled, leaning back and laying down on his back with his arms up and hands behind his head. I lifted my head to lay it on his bicep.

"Tell me about it," I muttered.

"My dad locked me in a mausoleum with corpses for hours at a time," he said.

"Your dad sounds like an utter douchebag," I said, looking at him.

"Yeah. He was," he sighed out, before looking back down at me, "So what happened to you?"

"What?"

"You said "Tell me about it", so what made your childhood, you know, hit the fan?"

I thought to myself of just another way to manipulate my words into not telling the whole truth while also not lying directly to his cute little face. I bit my lip before looking up to the ceiling.

"I used to have really bad anger issues," I began, holding up my hand in front of my face to touch the scars on my cheeks, "and one day I got so angry... I... I just lost control. And the next thing I knew, Mum was in the hospital. The next day... My dad told me we were going to visit her at the hospital, and ended up dropping me at a mental facility instead, leaving, and never turning back," I said, looking anywhere but to him.

"Shit," he murmured under his breath and I nodded.

"Yep," I said, popping the p, "Guess we've both had our fair share of it."

"Your dad also sounds like an utter douchebag, just an fyi," he said, causing me to let out a soft laugh. I turned towards him and nuzzled into his chest as he stared up, feeling his hand playing with my hair.

"We should probably split soon," I mumbled into his bare skin, even though I knew I would just rather lay here with him for a while.

"Yeah," he breathed out, pulling his hand away from my hair. I frowned, pulling away and beginning to stand, but was stopped when he pulled me back and covered me up with the blanket, "Turn around!" he shouted at the air, letting out a sigh after a moment.

"What?" I questioned, holding the blanket around me and turning away from him.

"Oh, no, no, no. Not you, just my perv of a brother," he said, causing me to furrow my brows.

"Diego or Luther?" I asked, looking around the room, though I didn't see either of them around.

"Neither," he said, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind me, "His names Ben, and he needs to get out of my room!" he said in a warning tone that semi-sounded like a teenager fighting with his sibling. After a moment, he finally let out a sigh, "Okay. You're good," he let go and walked around the room to gather up his clothes and began dressing himself, as I began to do, still kind of out of it. I knew he could talk to the dead, but I figured it was kind of like a psychic voodoo sort of thing, not just them being in his room while he's naked with a girl.

"So... What the hell just happened?" I questioned, and he let out a short chuckle, pulling on the skirt he'd stolen from Allison as I put on my bra.

"I can talk to ghosts, my brother died and now he's connected to me and can never," he started getting louder, yelling in the direction of the door, "Ever! Leave! Me! Alone!" he paused a moment before continuing, "No, you eat shit! You shit eater!" I laughed, covering my mouth as if to shut myself up while shaking my head at him before finishing getting dressed.

"So, he was just here? Did he see...?"

"No, no. He's been outside. I'm guessing he just heard us get quiet and thought we were done," he smirked at me, to which I rolled my eyes at him and smacked his bare chest.

"Arsehole," I glared.

"I'm hurt. So hurt," he clasped a hand over his heart with a dramatic sigh.

"I'll see you later Klaus," I laughed, patting down my hair before making my way out of his room. When I was out, I looked around cautiously before walking down the hallway.

It was almost sundown, so I just began to look for where we were supposed to meet up, finding what I assumed was the right door. I opened the door to be in the rain, looking around, I saw a statue of a boy, a weird looking gazebo, what looked like a greenhouse, and a couple of trees. I nodded, assuming this was the place, and closed the door once more, backing up into the hall I'd found it in. I looked around before leaning against the wall.

"Luce?" I heard and looked up to see Allison, then smiled.

"Hi, Allison!" I said, kind of glad to be seeing her as we hadn't got a lot of time to talk. She looked me over before smiling.

"So, what part of the UK are you from?" she asked, taking me aback.

"Oh, England," I said, making her nod.

"That's neat. I've always wanted to travel there."

"Why don't you? I'd assume someone as famous as you has to have enough money for a trip to England," I smiled up at the tall woman, who just shrugged.

"I guess I will as soon as this ordeal is over," she said, gesturing to everything going on around us, "So, why'd you move to America?"