4If you like this chapter, feel free to check out some of my other works in this Fandom, I particularly recommend "What Comes Next" and its sequel "Ordinary". Don't want to give anything away but if you listen to "A Cover Is Not The Book" from Mary Poppins Returns you may notice something….
"Dave?" Klaus asked with a watery smile as Dave returned it with one of his own.
"Hi. I'm here." Dave told him.
"I'm so sorry I left you." Klaus blubbered, struggling to thrash his way from his bonds whilst Dave stood before him.
"Hey, hey, none of that now. I don't blame you at all. It wasn't your fault, Klaus. I wanted you to go on and live your life without me, remember? I told you when we started dating, if you lost me, go back to where you came from and live without me, I'm happy you've gone back."
"I refuse to live if it's not with you, Dave." Klaus cried as he struggled some more. "HELP! HELP!" He screamed over and over, hoping someone would untie his binds so that he could reach Dave, hold him, embrace him.
"Master Klaus!" A voice called out as Pogo approached him, stooping to untie him.
"Pogo, god, please, help me."
"What are you doing, Master Klaus?" Pogo asked as he undid the knots keeping Klaus tied to the chair.
"I was forcing myself to get clean, and it worked. Dave!" Klaus cried, running to him, shuddering s he ran through Dave's arms.
"Klaus..." Dave said sadly. "I'm not really here, I can't hold you, not yet."
"Not yet?" Klaus asked as Pogo looked at him in shock.
"Master Klaus, are you talking to a spirit at the moment?"
"His name is Dave, Pogo." Klaus said with a sad look as he stared longingly towards Dave. "He is and was the best part of me."
"But why were you tied up my dear boy?"
"I need to be clean to see him. I'm sober, Pogo. For the first time in a long time, I'm not only sober, but I'm happy to be sober."
"I must say, you don't know how happy that makes me to hear those words from you, my boy." Pogo said, face breaking into a wide grin. "Mister Dave, truly, whoever you are. Thank you."
"He says don't mention it Pogo." Klaus said as Dave responded to him. "To be honest, I think he's trying to come to terms with the idea of a talking chimp."
"I suppose it must take some getting used too." Pogo smiled. "I'm sorry, Master Klaus, I was just happy to hear that you're clean again. Truly, this is a great day. Maybe now you'll be able to speak to your father like Master Luther wanted?"
At the mention of this, Klaus' eyes darkened and Dave flinched. From what Klaus told him, his siblings and their constant belittling of Klaus had really done a number on his confidence and psyche. He didn't want to witness Klaus spiral over that. Not again.
"That prick just wanted me to use my powers to solve his own curiosity. There's no mystery here, Pogo. Dad just died of old age, or a build up of spite, whichever the old bastard got too first." Klaus spat as Pogo shook his head.
"Master Klaus, I really wish you wouldn't speak like that of your late father. Despite his flaws, Reginald Hargreeves was a great man who did what he did to try and help you, all of you, realise your potential. I admit his methods may have been...flawed, but he did it with the best of intentions. Surely you see that my dear boy?"
"I don't and I doubt I ever will." Klaus told him simply, as Pogo sighed.
"Very well. I'll be downstairs if you need me, Master Klaus." Pogo said simply. "Mister Dave, though I cannot see you, it is nice to meet the man who has helped Master Klaus."
"Thanks Pogo." Dave smiled sadly after him.
Klaus conveyed the message as Pogo walked away, Pogo raising a hand to signal he'd heard and welcomed it.
/
Diego walked with Grace in the park, enjoying the moonlit night, and enjoying the fact that his Mother was finally free of the old house and the memories of the old place, all the nightmares and horrors the children had had to experience in their childhoods, before she pulled him aside.
"There's something else that needs to be said, Diego." Grace started to explain as Diego looked at her in worry. "Pogo and I, we've been lying. We've been lying to all of you."
"Mom? What's the matter?" Diego asked.
"It's about your father, about his death." Grace said as Diego looked in shock.
"Mom, please, you're scaring me, what have you been lying about his death for?"
"Your father knew he needed you and your siblings back together, he also knew you wouldn't reunite unless it was for something momentous. He needed you all together so you could fulfil your destiny and save the world."
"Mom, please. Tell me." Diego pleaded with her.
"Your father….he killed himself, Diego. To bring you all back together for the funeral." Grace told him as Diego reeled backwards in shock. "Before he died, he told Pogo and I his plan, swore that we'd keep his secret and reprogrammed my safety functions so I didn't perform First Aid on him, instead making me take his Monocle to further the murder mystery he was sure Luther would believe in. He hoped you'd also believe it too and together the two of you would get your siblings to investigate. He knew that if you got a taste for working together again, as the Umbrella Academy once more, you'd work together to stop the apocalypse, which he knew would be coming." Grace explained. Seeing the shock in Diego's eyes, Grace reached over to him, only to falter when he jerked backwards away from her.
"Diego...please..." Grace said softly. "We were only doing what your Father wanted. I couldn't live with it, not telling you children though. I had to tell you. Please, don't be angry at us. I'm so proud of the man you've become."
"Don't." Diego said suddenly, clearing his head. "Please, Mom, just...not right now, just don't. Please."
"Diego..." Grace said sadly as Diego turned away from her and began to run, back towards the Academy.
/
"You know if we leave now we can make that flight?" Allison asked.
"We?" Luther questioned, confused for a moment before smiling as Allison took his hand and walked with him, hand in hand, heading towards the edge of the park. Hailing a cab, the two of them climbed into it.
"Airport please." Allison told the driver with a smile. "There's an extra hundred if you get us there in the next twenty minutes."
"Are you sure it's safe?" Luther asked as the taxi sped away from the sidewalk and flew through the traffic, always remaining at the speed limit or there abouts.
After fifteen minutes he pulled into the airport car park alongside the terminal, and handing over a wad of cash, Allison pulled Luther from the cab, laughing as she did, and placing a kiss on his cheek.
"To the start of a new life?"
"To the start of a happy future." Luther replied with a smile and a blush. "I'm just wondering, what about the apocalypse, what about our family?"
"What about us, Luther?" Allison asked. "Look, we'll come back. Just go back to LA, grab Claire and come home. We'll sort out this end of the world mess and then we'll take off, just you, Claire and me, go see the world." Allison told him. "Just think of it. We've given our lives to things that make others happy, why not, just for once, make ourselves happy?"
"You're right." Luther told her, mulling it for a moment. "Why shouldn't we be happy together, just for once?"
"Come with me, Luther." Allison smiled, offering her hand, and hand in hand they walked into the terminal.
"One for LA, first class, next flight." Allison told the attendant on the desk after flashing her own boarding pass.
"Ma'am, to do that will cost at least $10,000." The attendant said awkwardly, as Allison pulled out her purse.
"Not an issue. First class. LA. Same flight. Thank you." Allison smiled again. An hour later, they were in the air and headed on their way to a bright future.
/
"Vanya?" Leonard's voice came from outside the room. "Are you in here?"
Vanya paused her searching the pages of her father's journal, reading where it said she had powers but her father was using her medication to suppress them and suddenly it all made sense. The fact that Leonard kept pushing her to believe she was special. The fact Helen had vanished. That her pills were gone. That she had gone from having no real talent to earning First Chair. It was all connected. Leonard, he'd done it. He played her, he'd manipulated her into letting her powers develop again. She didn't know why he had, but she knew there and then, whoever Leonard was, whatever Leonard was, he didn't love her. Didn't care for her like he'd made out all week. He was an enemy.
"Vanya?" Leonard asked, walking into the room, freezing when he saw her hunched on the floor over a book. A red journal. "Vanya...I can explain." Leonard started, as Vanya turned to him, tears streaming down her face, the room slightly shaking.
"Can you? Really? Tell me then, Leonard, why do you have my father's old journal? Why is there passages dedicated to me? To powers I didn't even know I had. To my anxiety pills that all went missing when I started associating with you? Tell me!" Vanya screamed, hearing a vase on the bedside table beside her shattering as she said it.
"Vanya, please. Let's just talk about this, ok? Just sit down, have a coffee and talk about it all? How does that sound?" Leonard asked nervously as a wind started blowing in the room, the shaking got louder and more intense and things started shattering all around him.
Vanya looked into his eyes, and Leonard was terrified to see her normally brown eyes had taken on a pure white appearance, and she smiled, her smile not looking small and shy, but wide and terrifying.
"Please, Vanya. I love you!" Leonard said as Vanya raised her hand and Leonard felt his feet lift from the ground. Struggling against some unseen force, Vanya stared at him without seeing. He knew there and then that it would be it. Vanya didn't know he was there and probably wouldn't have cared if she did. This would be the end, the end of all of his plans.
Vanya waved her hand and the shards of glass on the floor rose up and began to spin in the air, the shards moving dangerously close towards Leonard.
"Please….Vanya….." Leonard choked out as Vanya pushed her hand forward, the shards impaling Leonard, shredding through the air as wave after wave of glass and wood shot through the air and drove into his body, ripping through him, Leonard choked as blood ran out of his body, up into his mouth, as he choked on his own blood, then Vanya lowered her hand, and Leonard fell to the floor. The wind stopped, the shaking ended and Leonard crashed onto the floor with a mundane finality.
Taking a deep breath, Vanya looked around, her eyes turning from white to brown again. Looking around, seeing Leonard in a pool of his own blood, she covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself from screaming. Bending down and grabbing her father's notebook, she rushed down the stairs and out of the house, determined to put as much distance between herself and Leonard as possible. She couldn't think clearly, other than one thought. Get home. Get back to the Academy.
/
Five grabbed the tube from Gloria and opened it up.
"Protect Harold Jenkins."
Rushing to the typewriter, he quickly wrote up new orders for Hazel and Cha-Cha, ordering each one to eliminate the others and then threw them into the tubes, just as The Handler arrived in the room.
"You know that's not how we do things here." The Handler admonished him. Five could tell by the look she was giving him that she knew that he knew he was onto her and her plans. "Where's Gloria?"
"I don't know. Couldn't find her anywhere." Five remarked as Gloria stirred.
"You're a great disappointment to me. You can't change what's to come, Five. I truly find it so odd you can't shed this fantasy. You're a first rate pragmatist. You belong here, with us!"
"You made me a killer!" Five said, jumping as The Handler pulled out her luger and fired at him, jumping away to her office and grabbing her grenades.
"You owe me!" The Handler cried as she saw that Five wasn't going to give up anytime soon.
"I do owe a debt." Five admitted, the Handler hoping to seize on the statement, before he finished with "But it's not to you." Five removed the pin on one of the grenades and threw it to the Handler.
"Shit." She said as it exploded, ripping through the room as Five ran to safety.
Jumping again to the briefcase room, Five grabbed one before removing the pin on the second grenade and sticking it among the briefcases, running as fast as he could to escape as another blast ripped through the Commission, destroying everything in its path. Dialling the briefcase to take him back to later in the day, he jumped, landing on the counter of the Academy, to see nobody was there.
"Hello? Where is everyone!" Five yelled into the empty hall, wondering where they could all be.
"Five? You're back?" Klaus asked as he and Pogo entered the main room, spotting Five by the bar, yelling.
"Klaus, listen to me carefully. I know how to stop the apocalypse. Where are the others?"
