CHAPTER SIX. *ೃ༄
❝ MAMA BEAR.  ❞

☂

"What am I going to do with the both of you, huh? First, you break everything in that store and then, our child is cursing."

"Apologize to your mother," Diego sternly told Stanley, ignoring Poet's glare that was set on him and not on the child next to him. At hearing nothing but silence, he turned to look at the cause of it, and saw that Poet had dismissed their son away. "He didn't apologize, sweets."

"Diego," she started, sitting next to him in the booth, "you can't just take our son out in the middle of this stupid war that doesn't concern him. He could've gotten killed. Had it not been for Paris letting me know what was going on, I wouldn't have been able to do anything."

Diego sighed and slowly nodded his head, realizing she was right. He leaned his weight on Poet, who gracefully placed an arm around him to play with his hair. He closed his eyes. "I didn't expect us to become parents so fast. I thought it would've taken us, like, at least a couple of years or something."

Poet chuckled at his choice of wording. "Already planning for us to have kids?" He hummed. "Plural?" He nodded. "Damn, Diego. Desperate for me that bad?"

"You know it," he mumbled, raising his head up a bit to kiss his girlfriend on the side of the neck. "Let me make you my wife first, then we'll talk about pregnancy."

"Fine by me."

As they sat on the booth on the lobby of the hotel they were stuck at, they couldn't help but keep their eyes on Stanley. He was talking Paris' ear off and Paris was trying his hardest to keep up, which said a lot due to the fact he could hear things much differently due to his speed.

Allison and Viktor popped up out of nowhere shortly after to have a drink (Allison was the only one drinking the most) with the couple. Poet had left for a while, though, to make sure her son and nephew were okay because she did not trust her surroundings.

Diego was left to think about the situation with Lila.

"I mean, who does that? Who does it?" He started mumbling under his breath, his suspicions running high at the view of Stanley. He just knew something was off. But he didn't know if it was due to paranoia or if he truly knew what he was talking about.

"What are you mumbling about?" Allison asked, feeling agitated at hearing her brother mumbling incoherent words. She didn't have the patience to deal with the sound of his voice, much less his weird conspiracy theories.

"Lila," Diego simply answered before delving in to his thoughts. "Dumping Stan on us after all these years? I mean, that's not right. That's not right."

Viktor scoffed. "Hey, man. You and Poet did the deed, don't blame Lila for the consequences of bringing your son."

"That's not the point," Diego said, shaking his head at the accusation.

"Oh, what's the point?"

"One," Diego started to say while simultaneously speaking with his hands, "Poet deserved to see our kid grow. We both should've been there. If Lila knew, why couldn't she have brought him sooner? We had the right to be shown our child, a child we didn't even know Poet had given birth to." He ran a hand over his hair, a scoff escaping his mouth. "Two, the little shithead is cramping my style. I need to be able to react to danger on a moment's notice if I need to protect myself and Poet in this stupid ass timeline." He snapped his fingers. "How am I to do that when I'm playing wet nurse to a 12-year-old?"

"You're his dad!" Viktor perked up, stating his sentence with such emotion so that Diego could see and understand the absurdity in his own words.

"Alleged," Diego pointed out. He looked over at Poet. "If he turns out not to be our kid, it will hurt her. I don't care about my feelings, I care about hers. I'm his alleged dad. She's his alleged mom."

"Well, at least you have a kid," Allison spoke up, standing up with her empty cup in hopes that more alcohol will cure the void in her heart, or will cure something. She couldn't bear listening to her brother talk about the hardships of having a kid when she didn't have hers.

Viktor sighed at seeing the empty expression on his sister's face. He didn't know what to do to relieve her of such pain. He didn't know what else to do.

"Okay, gather round, people." Everyone turned to look at the new voice and came to find Five, Klaus, and Lorna storming into the hotel with urgency. "Where is—Where's every—Where's Luther?"

At noticing the missing sibling, Poet and the others looked around.

"Haven't seen him."

"Who knows?"

"Maybe we should look for him," Poet softly piped in, not wanting to irritate anyone else. After all, she could hear everyone's thoughts and they were filled with such negativity it was impacting her. So, she looked over at Paris who nodded his head in understanding, and left.

"We don't have time for that," Five breathed out, out of breath for walking too fast. He opened a journal rapidly in his hands. "We got bigger problems to worry about right now."

"Like what?"

"This." Everyone got closer to Five as he flipped pages of the journal he was tightly clutching onto. They watched as photos of women and articles popped up, though they were all confused on who the women were.

"Who are they?" Viktor questioned.

"These are our mothers," Five replied with, flipping another page where a picture of another woman popped up. Klaus was very eager to get his hand on the photo. "They're all dead. They all died on the exact same day, October 1st, 1989."

"That's our birthday," Viktor piped in, still not catching on to Five's theory as to what was happening and what was wrong.

"Not anymore, it isn't," Five continued. "They all died before we were born."

"That's dumb," Diego commented with confusion etched on his face. He looked at each of his siblings. "If we weren't born, how can we exist?"

"Exactly."

"What are you saying?" Viktor asked, frowning.

"I'm saying, when we jumped here, we created a time paradox," Five explained like it was the most easiest thing to understand. It was to him, but he needed to remember his siblings did not have that much knowledge as he did. "Alright? Not just any paradox. This is the grandfather paradox.

"What the hell is a grandfather paradox?" Klaus questioned, receiving a small pat on the head by Poet who didn't hesitate to explain to him about it in simpler terms.

"As for you," Five looked at Poet under his lashes with a frown that very much matched the others, "your mother is dead, we know that for certain. But, she didn't die on your birthday. She died on the same day she and your dad died. Because your parents weren't as crazy as our father and you didn't come in contact with them, they still gave birth to you. Your life is still as it's supposed to be. You're here, your brother died, your sister is alive, and Paris is alive."

"I don't even know what to feel," Poet said, pinching the skin of her forehead.

"I'm so confused," Diego spoke, looking at Poet so she could explain the situation to him, too. She was always so calm explaining it to him, unlike Five who got easily annoyed at his siblings understanding important information at a slow pace.

"Shocking," Allison commented.

Diego sent her a glare at hearing the tone she used and the choice of words she said.

"Well, someone killed our mothers, so we shouldn't exist," Viktor recalled, trying to process the information as the others were. "But clearly, we do exist, and the universe can't handle it, which is a problem."

"Big problem," Five nodded along with a sigh of disbelief escaping his mouth.

The deafening silence that shortly followed after was cut off by a small voice yelling out a "yah". Poet and Diego turned to look and came to find their son doing exaggerated moves with a cue stick.

"Stanley!" Diego sternly called out. "Now is not the time to be doing karate, okay?"

"Mom gave me permission, though, to practice just in case," Stanley said, glancing at Poet who looked up at Diego, raising a brow to test him to disagree with her. Stanley wasn't wrong considering Poet did give him permission when she was talking to him and her nephew.

Diego nodded, clearing his throat. He averted his gaze away from his pretty girlfriend whose eyes were so pretty, too. "Yeah, well, she's not wrong. You're very bad."

"Well, I saved your pathetic ass," Stanley talked back.

"What did I say?" Poet glared at him with squinted eyes, having the kid murmur out a quick apology to his dad, who was just happy to have his girlfriend defend him—Poet just didn't like Stanley not having manners.

"Okay, hold on," Allison cut in between to look at her brother. "Five, so we caused a paradox. What does that mean?"

"It's hard to say," Five responded, holding on to his mug before placing it in front of him. "It's all been theoretical until now, but things have started to disappear."

"What things?"

"Right now?" Five asked. "Uh, lobsters."

"And a shit ton of cows!" Klaus added in rather excitedly, happy to share his input about something important and valid.

"But I have a feeling this is just the beginning."

Allison perked up at his choice of words. "A feeling?" Five looked back at her. "Aren't you retired?"

"I want nothing more."

"You know," Allison began, getting closer to the teenager wearing the hat, her voice starting to raise, "you can't drag us through hell because you have an itch only an apocalypse can scratch and then expect us to deal with the fallout. You're not the boss."

Not affected by her words, Five stated her down. "Fine, I'm the messenger, and I'm telling you something terrible is coming."

"Then let's go attack the Sparrows," Allison suggested, "get the briefcase, and go home."

"This is our home, Allison," Five said. "Accept it."

Poet winced at the tension starting to form between the two of them after Five finished saying what he wanted to say. She knew Allison was having a hard time dealing with her daughter not existing in the current universe they were in, and she knew that she wouldn't take lightly to Five's words.

She snapped out of her thoughts, though, at coming to hear a bunch of clattering. She didn't have to turn her head to see and guess that it was Stanley who had hit something due to his actions.

"Diego—"

"That's it!" Diego exclaimed, turning to head towards Stanley. Poet looked to see what he was going to do and shook her head at his choice of words. "I'm telling your aunt to take you back."

"Ooh!"

"Diego," Diego perked up at hearing Poet's stern tone and backed away once he felt her standing next to him. She had placed a hand on his shoulder and her eyes were resting on Stanley who gulped at her tense stare. "Stop."

"Wait," Five spoke up at hearing Diego say the word "aunt", "where's Lila?"

"Shower," Stanley answered. "She said she was going to stay with us."

"Wait," Viktor spoke next. "When did Lila get back?"

"Five, where are you going?" Diego asked at seeing his brother retreat from the 'meeting', or whatever they tried to call it.

"Go talk to somebody who only has half her head up her ass," Five called out over his shoulder, though, he gestured towards Poet, Lorna, and Paris. "Other than those 3."

The Capulets couldn't help but snicker at his words and shook their heads in synch. Of course he would say something about them.

"Don't leave, Five," Klaus instructed rather weakly. "Don't leave."

As Five still continued to leave, Poet went to go sit beside Klaus who was clearly distraught on learning about his mother's death. After all, he had been wanting to meet her, just for it to mean nothing, and Poet knew how desperate he was to meet her.

"Hey, sweetie," Poet softly spoke, patting his thigh. "How are you?"

Klaus briefly smiled before shaking his head. "Not good." He looked at his siblings as they all ignored Stanley's attempts to convince his mom to let him continue doing what he was doing. "Do none of you heartless bastards care about our murdered moms?"

"Klaus, the only one that we know plugged into a wall," Diego said, his eyes following Poet's hands gesturing for Stanley to come to her.

"Oh yeah?" Klaus pointed towards the photo on the journal before raising it up to show everyone. "Well, this is my real mother. And she's called Rachel."

Poet glanced at the woman. "You have her eyes."

Klaus solemnly nodded. "And I have her eyes." He turned it towards his other siblings so they could see better, his eyes becoming teary-eyed. "See?" Silence. "Come on! We need to find out who did this! This is the thing. This is the main thing!"

"Hey," Poet spoke to Stanley as she ignored Diego's conversation with Klaus. She smiled at her son, raising a hand to touch his hair. She wasn't one to being strict with kids considering her history of abuse from her parents. But she did not like it when a kid disrespected someone much older than them, unless said older person disrespected them. Then would she not mind. "You can continue what you're doing but, you cannot disrespect your dad like that. If he yells at you like that, I will talk to him, okay? But don't disrespect him."

"Okay, Mom," Poet smiled at hearing his words. "Can I still practice?"

"Quietly please," she replied. She glanced at the siblings over her shoulder. "Your father, uncles, and aunt are having a serious conversation, so I don't want you interrupting that, okay? I trust you with that."

Stanley sighed, but he nodded. "Okay."

Just as he was to stand up, Poet grabbed his hand. He turned to look at her as she spoke. "Do not break anything or then will I ground you."

Stanley chuckled a bit. "Okay."

"Little late for a meeting, pal."

"I was being held captive," Poet's head perked up at the voice of the missing brother. She looked at him and saw that Paris was by his side, drinking out of a plastic cup that resembled Luther's cup in his hand. "By the Sparrows?"

"What?"

"Wait," Luther frowned at hearing and seeing the shock expressions on his siblings faces. "Did none of you notice?"

"We're happy you're home safe and sound."

"Yeah. Oh, my God."

Luther rolled his eyes at the choruses that followed after his question. He wasn't surprised to see that his siblings didn't even notice he was gone, much less worry about where he had gone. Though, he was just happy he at least had two people who did, and they came looking for him.

"Did they hurt you?" Allison asked.

"Who?" Luther questioned. "The Sparrows?" He shook his head and placed his bag of merchandise on the pool table they were all surrounding. "God, no. Not at all. Excellent hosts. Really quite charming, actually."

At reading his thoughts, Poet scrunched her nose. "Luther, I can see and hear everything you're thinking of. Please, have some decorum."

"Oh, sorry," he said, letting out an embarrassed and bashful chuckle before continuing. "You guys should see their gym. Outstanding! I really think we got these guys all wrong."

Allison took out a soundtrack, an unamused expression on her face. "Says the guy they kidnapped."

Diego whistled to get his attention. "What did they want?"

"Oh, Marcus," Luther responded as Poet stood up from her seated position. "He's missing. They want him back. Unharmed."

"He's not here," Poet said, passing the family to head towards her own.

"Well," Luther began again, "damn. I was hoping we'd solve that one quickly and then move on to problem number two. Disappearing people."

Everyone perked up at Luther's words, having recounted Klaus and Five's own words about disappearing animals, not people, animals. Maybe this thing is progressing and it's getting worse each second.

Though, not much to no one's surprise—just Luther's—a sound of glass shattering echoed through the empty lobby. Poet didn't have to turn around to know it was her son, so she let Diego handle it once he let her know he would.

"Uh, it was...it was the wind," Stanley stammered out, feeling afraid of letting down Poet since she trusted him to not make a lot of noise.

"Who's the kid?" Luther asked as Diego whisked Stanley away.

"Congrats!" Poet huffed, patting his shoulder as she walked past him to get to her nephew. "You're an uncle." She heard Luther let out a couple of confused noises before Viktor caught him up.  "Hey." Paris smiled at his aunt at coming to see her. "Are you okay?" He nodded, feeling Poet bringing him closer to her. She rested her cheek on top of his head. "Sorry for not being there. The sudden knowledge of having a son is... surprising nonetheless."

Paris snorted. "I'm just happy to have a cousin." He glanced at Stanley. "He's very active, it scares me."

"Gets it from Diego," Poet said with a chuckle following after. "In the meantime, if I'm not here, please stay safe with Lorna before she leaves. I don't want you wandering around when this thing is happening and we don't even know what's going on."

"I know, Aunt Poet," Paris said, sending her a reassuring smile. She smiled back, rubbing his arms up and down before squeezing his face.

"You know I love you," Poet muttered with such love he knew she felt bad for not paying attention to him. But, he was happy to see his aunt happy with her child and boyfriend. He knew he would always be there and he knew Poet wouldn't forget him. She wasn't that type of person. She had enough love for everyone, he knew he will always be loved.

"I know and I love you," Paris said, trying his best to reassure her with the smile on his face, in hopes it would go through her head she had bigger things on her plate.

"I'll be right back," Poet breathed out, giving him one last kiss on the forehead. He hummed in acknowledgment and drank from the drink Luther had bought him. Poet turned to look at her sister. "Keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't get into trouble."

"I know, sis," Lorna snorted out with a chuckle. She wrapped a tight arm around her nephew's shoulder. "He knows I love babysitting him."

"She likes Klaus so she wants to get extra brownie points either way me since he likes me," Paris revealed, his mouth being covered immediately by his green-haired aunt's hand. Poet glanced towards her sister, brows raised.

Lorna waived her off. "Do not even say a word."

"Wow," Poet scoffed out rather happily. She sent her a teasing glance. "Using your own family for personal reasons."

"Shut up, go get your kid."

"Lorna and Klaus, sitting in a tree—"

"Shut up!"

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

im trying to finish the last season
guys so i can see how i can write around
it but ughhh you guys scared me 😭

also, hello 😋 it's been 2 years since
ive written this book!!! wth!! that's
so crazy omg