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“Be everything I was afraid to let you become.”
-Reginald Hargreeves to Klaus Hargreeves
Something was wrong.
Fundamentally, the DNA of this place was flawed and Klaus could feel it. It wasn’t the quiet. Not quite. It wasn’t even the lack of ghosts. Little girl knows that would’ve been enough, but no.
It was the silence.
There’d always been a hum to the world (or to the universe…whatever, he didn’t know) like the sound of electricity. Not everyone could hear it, but it was always there, ya know?
Or, wait. Maybe it was a feeling. A pulse? Like, life had a heart beat…or something. Except, whenever he brought it up, even Viktor would look at him like he was crazy-er than usual.
Well, he didn’t really even notice until it was gone. So, whose fault was it really if no one believed him?
But, anyway, the point is….The vibes were off. Of this, Klaus was certain.
“It’s too quiet. I’m literally going insane.” Klaus said as he wandered the isles of the local Bed Bath and Beyond with a pout. “I miss the chaos.”
“Yeah, you’ve told me this.” Diego muttered as he perused the various baby items the store carried with curiosity. Good of ole’Reggie to provide them with a place to purchase the unnecessary necessities of regular life. “And it’s why I brought you. Go look for a sound machine or something. It’ll help you sleep.”
Klaus rolled his eyes. He didn’t need sleep. He needed to fix this before something really went wrong.
“Look man, I get it. We’re all lost without our powers. You just gotta get used to it.” Diego pressed on. Ooo, there was a ‘Daddy’s Little Monster’ bib. Could that give the kid a complex? Or did it count as ‘cute’? Diego didn’t have the experience needed to decide.
He put the bib in his cart.
“You don’t get it. How does no one else get it?” Klaus said as he made his way further into the store. “Mark my words, brother dear. This is going to be one of those times where it turns out I have some super secret insight and all of you are going to regret not listening to me.” He thought for a moment, “Well, regret is a strong word, but it will be incredibly inconvenient.”
Diego stared at his retreating form, exasperated, “That’s just not even a thing.”
“What if I could though?”
“Could…what Klaus?” Five said before tipping the lip of his beer bottle into his mouth. It’d been 2 weeks since they arrived in this universe and Klaus had consistently been muttering out some nascent form of whatever it was he wanted to say. Never quite getting to the point. Now, on the balcony of some hotel room in the middle of whatever the hell this place was, with the stars above them, Klaus apparently felt like he finally had the right words.
“Go back.”
Five lowered the bottle, “Go back, where?” He had his suspicions. They’d all been expecting something like this. Though, it’d been hard to babysit without actually babysitting. Klaus admitting it might actually make their ‘jobs’ easier.
“To the Void-” Klaus pressed on when Five tried to interrupt him, “No no, wait. Listen, she doesn’t want me there. It’s not just a me thing-”
“Who doesn’t want you there?”
Klaus’s eyes narrowed. He’d mentioned her before, hadn’t he? Huh, guess not. “The Little Girl on the Bike.”
The young older brother’s face scrunched up as his chin jutted forward. “The Little Girl-who the fuck-”
“I think she’s God and kind of a bitch.” Klaus laughed, “Honestly, I kinda like that about her. Gives her a bit of moxy, ya know?” He took a drink as Five stared. “Anyway, she doesn’t really care for my sparkling personality.”
“You met…God?”
“Oh, yeah man. A few times now.”
When Five placed his bottle on the small table between them the click of glass against wood was distinctive in the silence. What does one say when your (formerly) immortal sibling tells you they’ve crossed over into the afterlife and God does, in fact, exist?
He was suddenly grateful the rest of their group was inside. This was just too much.
“Listen, you asshole-” he began, “I don’t care if there is a God. Not after I spent 45 years wandering an apocalyptic wasteland, alone. Not after I buried all of you. Not after three,” he lifted three fingers, “Apocalypses. If she does exist, she doesn’t give a shit-”
“What if she can help us?!”
“And what if she can’t? In case you haven’t realized; We. Don’t. Have. Powers. Klaus. If you die, you’re just going to stay dead.”
“But what if we like…I don’t know, did that thing where you guys stop my heart and then, if necessary, BAM! Hit me with the paddles and I’m back. Big green eyes all fluttery and gorgeous. Good as new.”
The sigh that escaped Five was thunderous in his chest as he leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Why are you coming to me with this?” He suddenly felt all of his 58…59 years? Who even knew anymore? He didn’t.
Klaus blinked, startled by Five’s apparent…exhaustion. Frankly, he wasn’t really sure why he was giving voice to this concept at all. Other than the fact that it felt so overwhelmingly like what he was supposed to do. “I don’t know. I mean, I thought that maybe-”
“I’d be willing to take the risk? Is that what you thought?”
“I mean, kind of. Yeah.” Klaus paused, his eyes scanning the slope of Five’s shoulders, “I think I thought you might take me seriously. After everything.”
Five laughed.
“Fine. Fuck you too.” Klaus collected his bottles and stood to go inside.
“Shit,” Five said through clenched teeth as he grabbed Klaus’s arm. “I-I know you’re being serious. That’s what scares me.” getting to his feet. He missed when he was of a height with his brother, “I’m not as unfeeling as you all seem to think I am.”
“Five, I kno-”
“Two weeks ago, I-we thought….You and Luther-” Five cleared his throat. “I can’t bury you again, Klaus. Don’t ask me-”
“Ok,” Klaus said softly, cutting his brother off with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Alright, I won’t.”
Five looked up at Klaus and he couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever it was that had sparked this idea was still inside him, “Klaus-”
“I’m not suicidal, Five. Hand to God, or…wait.”
“How about this,” Five started, taking a step closer to his brother, there was barely any space left between them now. “If you die, I swear on your Little Girl that I won’t stop until I find a way to cross over and bring you back so I can kill you myself. Clear?”
“Crystal baby.”
The cardboard stationery of Reginald’s summons grew damp in Diego’s hand as he continued to crush it against his palm. Though it was a poor excuse for a stress-ball, it’d have to do as he stared at their host along with the rest of his siblings. Well, minus one…minus two? What was Ben to him now?
What was Allison?
God, he missed his knives. He’d been expressly forbidden from bringing them. As Lila had put it, “Your aim is shit without your powers. You’ll only be giving those assholes easier access to something else they can kill you with.”
“I can fight,” he replied fruitlessly.
“Yeah, no. You’re shit at that too.” She kissed him then, her lips betraying her composure. “Don’t die.”
“Yes ma’am.”
And, you know, weapons were banned regardless. The ones he tried to smuggle in were confiscated. As he knew they would be, obviously.
“In conclusion,” the man he once called father recounted briskly to the group from the other side a massive desk…inside a massive office. “After nearly three weeks' time, the five of you are still powerless. Is that correct?” The half glare he gave them was more than they’d been afforded as children and even now, Diego couldn’t quite bring himself to look away.
It was a good thing Lila’s presence hadn’t been deemed necessary.
From the corner of his eye, Diego could see that Five’s shoulders were nearly at his ears, “For the last time, yes. And I repeat, as if you didn’t know. It’s obvious you’ve had eyes on us the entire time. How else would you have known where to send your little invite?” Little man was squared up between Hargreeves and Viktor. The latter of which was doing his best to keep Luther in check. Regardless of his actual size, without his strength, the security guards outside Reginald’s office were enough to handle their former Number One. “This entire charade is a waste of time. What exactly is it that you really want, Old Man?”
Frankly, those same guards were the only reason they were here. Hell, it was more a militia than a security force, even for a corporate office as prodigious…and huge as this. Plus, they were locked in.
Really, this whole meeting was not only a farce, but overall a horrendous idea that would inevitably end terribly for everyone involved.
Tearing his eyes away from their fath-from Reginald, Diego once again found his gaze lingering on the woman sitting behind the old man. She had something vaguely ethereal about her. A familiarity he couldn’t place.
“We have no reason to lie.” Klaus said to his left with a laugh in his voice, an attempt at easing the growing tension. He always found a way to laugh at the worst possible time. Klaus saw it as a skill. Diego was certain it wasn’t. “Honestly Dad, you won. I mean, really, bravo.” he took a step forward with a small clap. The woman continued watching. Reginald continued making notes. “I think the best thing now, for all of us, is if we-" He gestured vaguely behind him to the group he arrived with, "Oh so kindly stay out of your way. Am I right, fellas?”
“No!” Luther snapped near the door, pushing against Viktor’s guard. “I want to know where Sloane is! I’m not going another day without her by my side.”
“Luther,” Viktor’s attempt at calm was possibly the best that any of them could manage.
“I-I can’t.” Luther replied, looking from Viktor to Reginald. “Please, just tell me.”
Reginald sat back with a pitying sigh, “Your sister simply did not request her presence here in our deal. The conditions I was presented with inside Oblivion left no room for unnecessary additions.”
Diego stepped back.
“You son of a bitch!” Luther’s voice rose above the tenor of the three men currently trying to hold him back as Klaus stood in place. Unsure how to arrange himself within the pile of brothers.
“Luther, not here. Not n–n-now.” Diego tried to reason, wrapping his arms around Luther’s frame from the rear. His words fell on deaf ears.
“FIX IT! BRING HER BACK!”
“Just, let us leave. Whatever you were looking to get out of this-” Viktor shook his head at the floor, his hands pushing against Luther’s chest. “Either you got it or you didn’t!”
Reginald stood, pulling something out of his breast pocket and placing it on the desk. His watch.
They had to get out of here.
“Reggie.” The woman’s voice was soft, yet clear. Diego wasn’t sure what she intended by saying the old man’s name like that. With her voice the word held a concern that was unnatural. There wasn’t a single thing Reginald Hargreeves had ever done to earn that kind of care.
He felt dread pool in his stomach as he, Five and Viktor forced Luther back toward the door.
“Not to worry Abigail. A hypothesis simply requires testing, does it not?” Reginald didn’t look up as he fiddled with something on his desk. A drawer? Diego couldn’t be sure in the struggle. “Do you recall the seconds it took the last time you returned, Number Four? I can’t quite recall if it was ten or fifteen.”
“Dad…don't.” Klaus was frightened.
Fuck.
“No no no,” Diego pulled away from Luther.
It was too late.
Two shots rang out.
Smoke rose up softly from the barrel of a pistol Diego didn’t recognize as Klaus stumbled back. Back into his arms.
Falling.
He didn’t even register as Reginald picked up his pocket watch. Waiting.
Diego lowered them to the office floor. He’d been shot before, why didn’t he know what to do with his hands? Why couldn’t he think? Klaus needed him to think.
Five could only have moved faster if he blinked and suddenly fabric was being pressed against Klaus’s chest. His suit jacket.
Two bullets. Two wounds and one was dangerously far to the left.
If Diego could bring himself to look up he’d see Luther’s attempts at getting to the office phone being hampered by the aim of the same pistol that was going to be the death of his favorite sibling. His best friend.
His best friend.
Five’s hands were covered in blood, Klaus’s blood. “Diego! Diego, help me!”
There was too much. Diego’s hands were drenched the moment he pressed them against Klaus, as the blood inside his brother bubbled out with every breath he tried to take.
Klaus tried to speak? To let out a breath, a gasp, but there was only red spilling passed his lips.
Viktor was the first to really understand. To accept this. “Shhh, shhh,” he soothed as he knelt. Fingers light as they tried to wipe the red from Klaus’s cheek. “It’s ok. You’re ok.” His small frame leaning forward as he began placing kisses in Klaus’s hair. “We’ll be ok.”
That was a lie.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. This can’t be happening. He already did this.
He wouldn’t accept this.
“Hey, listen to me.” Diego started. His voice was surprisingly clear, steady, even in his haze. He didn’t have to think. To visualize. He could only picture green as Klaus’s eyes found his. They were too bright. Lashes long and covered with tears. “You can come back.”
“Diego-”
He didn’t even spare Five a glance. Not while Klaus was still here. “I need you to come back. Ok?”
Klaus blinked, slow. The blood on his cheek a stream running from his mouth down into his hair. Diego cradled his face, bringing their foreheads together.
“My kid needs their uncle,” he said with a laugh. No, a sob. “And I need my brother. So, you have to come back. Ok?”
There was no acknowledgement from Klaus.
No movement.
No breath.
Above him, the click of a pocket watch. The timer started.
10 seconds.
60 seconds.
5 minutes.
10 minutes.
60 minutes.
“That’s it.” Five snapped, seething. Rage barely contained by the need to get the rest of them out of there alive. “Experiment concluded. Research done. We’re leaving.”
“An accurate assessment of events, I suppose.” Regniald replied. Neither he nor the woman had said much since the gunshots and the door had remained firmly shut behind them.
(A fact that made Five bristle at the implication.)
(They’d delivered the lamb to slaughter.)
Diego staggered and stood in a daze. Arms numb with Klaus’s weight.
“Diego,” a voice said softly.
Luther.
“Let me take him.” the larger man paused, “Please.”
And Diego was suddenly afraid. Terrified. He wanted to refuse. Needed to refuse. Klaus was going to come back and he needed to feel it when he did.
He was shaking.
His arms were numb.
W-w-what if he dropped him?
He blinked for what felt like the first time in an hour. With fresh tears blinding him, Diego nodded.
He didn’t hear the buzzer as the doors of Hargreeves's office unlocked. He barely registered Viktor’s gentle hand guiding him out.
“It took you long enough.”
“Are you actually happy to see me?” Klaus questioned as he looked up at the Little Girl. Her bike was tossed aside on the grayscale earth and Her black eyes bore into him from above. Damn, he really was out of practice. Though his bright green shirt remained vibrant, as usual, the rest of the Void was once again in black and white.
It wasn’t as nice here without color. Her eyes were a lovely brown when there was color.
She sighed and stood from Her crouch over him, “My happiness is negligible. You were supposed to be here days ago.”
Days?
“How am I supposed to know what it is you want me to do if you won’t tell me?” His chest hurt and he was just…confused. It didn’t help that he’d actually tried to get here sooner and then he stopped trying to even explain it, for Five’s sake.
In the end, the choice to come hadn’t been made by him.
Another trauma to unpack when things weren’t an absolute shit show. But really? What difference does it make if Dad kills him once or one hundred times?
Fuck, the tally was actually closer to one hundred than one.
He really needs therapy.
“I tell you things all the time. You’re just too stupid to read the signs.”
“Oh shit!” he laughed. “Am I actually a prophet? Ha ha, wait til I tell-”
He stopped. Ben and Allison were probably the only two who would get a kick out of it. And well, his Ben was gone and Allison…was in pain. He had a feeling, wherever she was, it was just like the rest of their current universe. Pretty and so lifelike, but wrong.
Soulless.
“Would that mean my cult was less a cult and more an actual religion or?”
“Get up.” She offered Her hand to him. “I can’t be sure how much time we have and I think you’d prefer it if you didn’t wake up in a coffin.”
“What do you mean? I thought time passed differently here. Like a little siesta, it doesn’t count.”
“It's not the same. That universe isn’t mine.” He joined Her on his feet. She had a nervousness about Her that he didn’t care for at all. Klaus could remember the only other time She seemed uncertain.
It was when She told him She made him.
“He wasn’t supposed to get this far.” She pulled Her bike upright. “Free will may have been a mistake in hindsight.”
“What does that mean?” He didn’t really expect an answer.
Hell-
Wait.
Heaven?
Exclamations aside, he hadn’t expected Her to admit to a mistake.
“You’re kinda freaking me out a little bit.” A lotta bit.
“It means, my will can only do so much and you’re my best option at starting the Apocalypse.”
Lila had never bathed someone before. Well, other than herself. It was an act of care she was not practiced in, like so many others. And she really needed the practice. Washing the blood of her lover’s dead brother off of said lover hadn’t exactly been what she had in mind, but she’d never been adverse to a trial by fire.
She’d never been adverse to blood.
And it wasn’t like Diego minded if she didn’t get something right right now. He was far away. Her fingers carded through his hair in a way she knew he liked and he barely even blinked. She did it again regardless, before pouring a cup of water over his hair.
Tenderness wasn’t inbuilt, not in Lila’s case anyway. Mothe-The Handler had been gentle with her in her way, but she never wasted time letting Lila learn to be gentle with others. She was only ever taught to take.
She’d been born to take.
It was her nature.
To take and to break and to learn what's inside. Learn what they knew, how they worked. What they could do for her. How she could use them. Things and people and power, it didn’t matter. Not to her. She was the best. Better than Five, that’s for sure.
He’d told her, Five did, what had happened. He explained the blood, the death.
Diego had been sitting in it, holding Klaus for an hour. Covered in it for longer than that.
Too afraid to go anywhere real, Klaus’s body lay on a bed the next room over to the right. Until they could figure out what to do. Where to put him. How to keep him to themselves in a place that wasn’t theirs.
“What do I do?” Her whispered words from earlier came out in a panic to Viktor, who had been in the tiny kitchen wiping blood off his hands with a threadbare hotel washcloth. Diego had been on a bed staring at nothing. She couldn’t get him to look at her.
Viktor seemed the most level-headed and she didn’t understand. Grief was a part of her, had been since that night, but it didn’t mean she knew how to deal with it. What to do with that part in others. How to not hurt them with it. “How do I help him?”
“Ummm,” Viktor started, voice hoarse and tears leaking from his eyes as he stared at the ceiling, He quickly wiped at them before looking at her. “Stay with him. Hold him if he wants you too. Listen to him if he needs it.”
Lila nodded, waiting to hear more.
“Be patient with him. His stutter might-might be hard to manage at the moment.”
“Are you ok?”
Viktor blinked.
Lila blinked back, “That was a stupid question.”
Viktor gave her a teary smile. “A bit, yeah.”
“Can I…do you want a hug?”
His lips pressed together tightly as he nodded.
She needed the practice. So, she wrapped her arms around the smaller man as tightly as he’d let her and blinked back her own tears.
“I…” Back in the bath, Diego’s voice was so quiet she wasn’t so sure he said anything, but Lila stopped all movement to listen.
He breathed deeply through his nose and out through his mouth. Steading himself.
She cupped his cheek and wiped at the fresh tears on his face, only adding to the damp. She tried her best to look encouraging.
“I d-d-didn’t.” he paused and she knew it wasn’t the end of a sentence. So, Lila waited as Diego’s eyes left her face to look up at the incessant flickering of the brutal incandescent lightbulb this shitty excuse for a hotel could provide.
He started again, “I told I n-needed him to come b-b-back.”
She felt her eyes soften, “I know sweetie.” Her reply was more to acknowledge the sentiment than to admit that she’d known what had been said.
It wasn’t the right thing to say. He shook his head at her, frustrated. “I d-d-didn’t tell him,” he swallowed, “How much I l-love him. I told him I n-needed something from him, expected something, and I d-didn't-”
“No, no Diego.” He was rushing into a panic and she would try her best to stop him, “He knew.”
She tried to catch his eye, to pull his gaze to hers, but he kept shaking his head. Refusing to look at her like he thought he failed. Her or Klaus, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t true.
She didn’t know what to say, but her words just came out, “I loved him because you loved him and I barely knew him.” This was true. Klaus had called her family when everyone else treated her like her opinion didn’t matter. He wasn’t perfect. He was a mess. A disaster of a person. A kindred, someone probably more broken than she’d ever been and yet he wore it better than she ever would.
(And that was probably the only time she’d ever allow herself to believe a Hargreeves was better than her at something.)
Even after her threat, she knew Klaus was fighting for something only for it not to matter in the end.
Lila wished she could’ve known him better.
“You try to hide it, but you’re a marshmallow my love.” she smiled when his eyes finally met hers. Bittersweet, “You love and you love and you love so much your big stupid heart beats like a drum with it. And those of us it beats for can hear it, I promise you.”
It was childish and silly, but it was true so she let it be said.
And Diego was looking at her like he was seeing her for the first time. So, she kissed him again, for the first time.
“He knew. Alright?” Her eyes danced across his face, waiting for her words to sink in.
Eventually, Diego nodded. “I think…”
Lila waited.
“I think you’re gonna be a great m-mom.”
“Yeah?” she said with a pride she couldn’t explain. He may have said it before, but right now it didn’t matter. She must’ve done something right.
“Yeah,” and his face crumbled as he pulled her to him, sobbing in earnest.
The angle was awkward and her clothes were now wet, but it didn’t matter. She’d hold him until he told her to stop.
Her own heart beating out “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“We’ve been walking for a week straight!” Klaus snapped, irritated. “Literally, and like the actual literally not the figurative-”
“We have and we haven’t. You’ll get used to not needing the rest. It’s human nature. Habit, but you don’t need it here.”
“Wonderful! Fantastic! I can run a marathon, or five, in Heaven. That’s good to know for when I wake up SIX FEET UNDER!”
She stopped and turned back to him.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
A part of him wondered if it was possible to win a staring contest against God. She never seemed to blink.
Her eyes were brown again. They’d been brown again for a while.
Her dress was still white though. God, that’s boring.
God is boring.
“Are you done? Or do you want to waste more of our ‘time’?” She said sarcastically.
“Have you gotten taller?”
She stared at him.
He stomped his foot like a child, at the child. Which wasn’t necessarily advisable because they’d been walking on sand dunes for however long a while was. “Come on! Why can’t we just...heaven walk, or whatever, to wherever this place is?”
She genuinely looked affronted, “You aren’t supposed to be able to do that.”
“What do you mean? Luther could do it too.”
“I suspect that’s because he was following you. Nevermind.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know you can’t understand this, but normally, people don’t like to be disturbed. Especially IN PARADISE.”
He glared at her. When did she start reminding him of Ben?
“Why did it have to be you?” She questioned no one at all. Wasn’t She supposed to be the one listening?
He laughed, bitterness seeping in from all sides. “I didn’t choose to be made.” He really was even a disappointment to God. How much was he actually supposed to take before he wasn’t even a person anymore?
She makes him ask so many fucking questions. Christ!
Or not! WHO KNOWS?!
“Seriously? Do you really hate me?” His voice was just, in awe of the bullshittery to be frank.
She thought for a moment or two. Eventually, “...No.”
“Then why-”
“I don’t like what you show me. What I see in you.” For a moment, She really did look like a child. “You’re not the disappointment Klaus.”
“Great,” he said after a loll. The sarcasm dripped so heavily he could build a castle in the sand. “Glad that’s cleared up.”
“You’ve died nearly a hundred times. Many of those deaths were at the hands of your father. Someone who should have loved you.”
Klaus took a step back. Shit, was this a moment? Were they having a moment?
“You’ve been tortured. You’ve lied and cheated. You’ve begged and fought. You’ve betrayed and been betrayed. You’ve had to do things no one should do and you’ve seen things no one should see. You’ve loved and you’ve lost and you have never known Peace. And I am sorry…for all of it.”
He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.
A first.
God just apologized.
“I don’t care for suffering, but I cannot stop it and you’ve suffered more than most.” For a moment, the wind picked up, blowing her smooth hair across her beautiful face. She looked almost serene. “Seeing you reminds me of my failings, Klaus. Not yours.”
“Why me?” It burned him, the question. Something he had always wondered. Itching like a bad drug beneath his skin. It wasn’t fair.
But looking at her now, it may have been the first time he was truly aware of who it was that was speaking to him. How could he not be angry?
How could he not be moved?
…He missed being agnostic.
“That’s not how this works.” She replied with a shrug, “There is no why. Billions and trillions of souls. Everyone is everything they could ever be all at once. Everything and nothing. Always. You are made up of choices, those you chose and those chosen for you before you could tell the difference. You are who you are because you are who you are. Nothing more and nothing less. I created you, but I did not make you who you are."
“You really don’t have that much control do you?”
“Like I said, free will."
About Three Weeks Ago
“Morning sunshine,” Klaus said softly, with a wave of his hand, Luther was sure it used to say ‘Hello’. The thinner man was busying himself with frying bacon. Along with the meat there on the small counter sat a carton of eggs and bread.
Luther let out a grunt in response. “You’re up early.”
“Yeah, well-” he gestured vaguely. And it remained as such because Luther had absolutely no idea what he meant.
“Where did you get the food?”
Klaus grinned, “There’s a quaint little market down the street.”
“And how did you pay for the food?” Luther rolled his eyes
The grin widened, “Had a discount, all five fingers.”
A sigh escaped him as he sat. Luther hadn’t really expected anything less. Klaus was freakishly skilled at getting things for free, it was the reason they currently had a place to sleep, but he definitely didn’t like the thought of him stealing.
“You think we’ll find the others today?” Klaus continued, dishing the bacon out onto a napkin covered plate. “Or, I mean, will we at least look for them?”
It’d been three days and the search for Sloane hadn’t turned up a goddamn thing. Luther really didn’t know what he was doing. He often found himself regretting the choice not to stay with the group. Running off like he had was a stupid move. How was one man supposed to search the world alone?
Well, he wasn't totally alone at least. “I guess.” he replied dejectedly.
“Ah, cheer up Big Guy. We’ll find her.”
Silence fell between them while Klaus continued making breakfast. It smelled good, normal for bacon and eggs, and he hadn’t set the apartment on fire, so Luther counted that as a win.
“Now, eat up. A growing boy like you needs his strength.”
Luther began shoveling food into his mouth, ignoring his brother’s quip.
They ate quietly for a few minutes, neither sure how to have a casual conversation with the other to be entirely honest. Small talk had never really been their thing.
Maybe it should’ve been.
“So,” Luther started. He wasn’t entirely sure where he wanted this conversation, or lack thereof, to go, “Why did you follow me exactly?”
That probably wasn’t small.
Klaus blinked, “You just came back to life. You’re fragile! You need someone around to make sure you don’t die again because, trust me, that’s super easy to do.”
“I really don’t think it is Klaus.”
“No really-”
“For you, maybe, but I’ve only died once. And it definitely wasn’t an accident.”
“Ok, fine!” Klaus set his fork down on his plate with a clatter, “Maybe, I thought you shouldn’t be alone having just…misplaced Sloane.”
“You don’t even like me!” Luther said earnestly.
“That’s not true! And I don’t have to like you anyway, you’re my brother. Besides, no one deserves to be alone.” Klaus trailed off for a moment, eyes distant. His fingers began to fidget with the chain that slipped beneath the collar of his shirt.
Luther thought for a moment about how it felt to be conjured. Summoned into the world by Klaus’s power, by the Life that poured from him. To be tied to Him. To not be fully real. To be a part of Him or to be nothing. Just a specter in a sea of voices.
Luther didn’t think Klaus had any idea how strong he was. Hell, he didn’t think Klaus had any idea what he was. And it wasn’t like Luther could explain it.
But even with Ben and the rest…Klaus had been alone. For so long, he’d been alone in a crowded room.
They both knew what it was to be lonely.
Luther reached out and took Klaus’s hand. “For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Green eyes came to life again and searched his face before giving Luther’s hand a gentle squeeze in return. “For what?”
“Making you come back.”
Klaus waved him off, “It's totally morbid, but I’ll have all the time in the world to hang out there once I’m really dead.”
“I guess so, but thanks anyway.” Luther said with a smile.
“No need to thank me. We’ll find her bud.”
“I hope so.”
Present
Luther sat at the table in the cramped hotel kitchen, staring with dead eyes out into the room at Klaus’s still form while Five sat with him.
He didn’t know how long it’d been since either of them moved. Since either of them spoke.
He couldn’t help the breath that escaped him, “This is my fault.”
And, for a moment, nothing more was said.
Until-
“Jesus Christ,” Five snapped and left the room.
Klaus stumbled and fell…again. His feet were still uncertain in the sand.
Maybe it was a blessing he hadn’t been wearing heels when he died this time?
“Nearly there,” She called over Her shoulder with an encouraging tone. They’d slipped into a companionable silence so long ago, Klaus almost certain it was the longest period of willful silence he’d ever shared with a person. (Or something in the shape of a person?)
Having his jaw wired shut hadn’t exactly been voluntary. Ha, imagine if he admitted to them now how exactly that had happened? Maybe his siblings would actually believe him now.
No, stupid thing to think about. This was heaven, right? Or hell. Or both. He shouldn’t dwell on such things.
If this were real life he would be so fucking tan by now.
Shame.
“Remind me again why this is taking so long?” he said mostly to the sand.
“It’s a pilgrimage. It’s not meant to be quick and easy.”
“Right. Yeah, okay.” Klaus replied with a sigh. Glancing down as he pushed himself to his feet, Klaus thought of something, “Hey, can I get my tattoos back? Do you think?” The ones on his hands really didn’t matter all that much, but…the others.
She shrugged, “If you want.”
“Oh, good. That’s good.”
Maybe not the Umbrella.
They continued walking on, until She stopped and turned back to him with a smile, offering her hand. Klaus accepted and joined Her at the top of the dune they’d been climbing.
Below them, glass glittering in the sunlight, sat a Greenhouse.
Klaus’s tilted his head, “Huh,”
“Not what you were expecting?” God questioned, Her smile adding a lilting sound to her voice.
“Not exactly, but I suppose it passes the vibe check.”
“Thank goodness for that.” She replied, deadpanned, as She stepped down, “Come on, time we finish this.”
Though beautiful, it was a relatively unremarkable structure from the outside.
And only from the outside.
Inside was more like an Oasis than the garden isle at Lowes. Plants of all kinds grew together and apart, blended and intertwined. Some he knew never grew near each other on Earth, yet their joining was impossibly possible here. Some reached so far above him, Klaus knew it shouldn’t be and yet it was. Water fell and flowed, from where he didn’t know.
The atmosphere wasn’t cloying. The heat, not overwhelming. In fact, there seemed to be a breeze trapped within, near constant and neverending. The wind carried with it a fresh sweetness.
Everything here was uncontained. The structure a shell meant to give understanding. To show purpose, nothing more.
And the color…Klaus couldn’t describe it. The muted tones of the Void he knew well by now, but this was far beyond anything he’d ever seen in Life. Every shade was brilliant and clear and they all danced together in their splendor.
This place was Peace. And it was Chaos. And it was Life.
He laughed, a pure sound as She watched him take it in. Klaus thought he finally knew his place once he entered the Void, but this…this was where he belonged. He finally felt like he could breathe. Like he’d never once taken a breath before now. So, he filled his lungs and quietly rejoiced.
“It’s perfect.” he said, turning to look at Her with a smile on his lips.
“I know.”
They weren’t alone. There were Others there tending to the plants. They were intent on their duties and ignored the pair as they journeyed deeper within the Greenhouse.
He watched a few as they rearranged things. As they took away the Dead so new Life could emerge in its place.
“Is this where you get the flowers in your basket?”
She nodded, “They represent the lost. The Souls that come here, confused and scared. That need more guidance.”
“Neat! So, all of these represent Souls?”
“Most do.” She paused, “There are others that are…more."
He quickly got the jist that those plants might be the reason they were here.
Compared to the rest of their journey, the walk to their destination within the Greenhouse was frustratingly short. He wanted to stay, to roam. To learn every plant and to help them grow. To share their breath. To reach out and touch and be touched at his choosing.
To say that yeah, maybe he kinda wanted to dance among them naked in the moonlight and maybe that was a little extreme. But fuck it, he kind of did.
He wanted to show Dave so badly he ached with it.
She hummed beside him, sensing his thoughts. “Everything ends Klaus. There will come a time when you can stay.”
He laughed again, “You promise?”
She eyed him thoughtfully, “I do.” God answered and Klaus wasn’t sure if he liked what he saw in Her gaze. They held an expectation of him and he wasn’t sure what She meant by it.
“Everything ends?”
“Everything.”
When God ended, who would take Her place?
Klaus really did not want to think about that.
Eventually, they stopped in front of a section of flowers. Their individual shape was rounded and they grew together in bunches. Orange and red and yellow, they stood there like flames in their pots.
“Oh right!” Klaus gasped with understanding. “Marigolds.” He remembered what Viktor called the energy that lived within them.
Once again, She nodded. “Your father came through once, long ago, and stole them from me.”
“So he-”
“No.”
He thought for a moment, “He came through…Oblivion?”
“Yes.”
“Well, shit.”
“Yes. It’s a frustration to be sure, but necessary. A bridge isn't a bridge without both sides."
He shook himself, ran his hands over his face roughly before clapping them together, “Alright Little Miss Sunshine, what’s the plan?”
She grabbed a pot from the shelf and handed it to him.
Klaus paused, disappointed. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He considered his options. “What comes after this? How will we know what to do?”
“You’ll know.” She said, knowingly.
He would not miss that.
“What about Luther?” he pressed on with worry. “He was dead. If we fix things, will he die…again?”
She pursed her lips for a moment and then sighed, “Not if You don’t want him too.”
“Great, more responsibility. You understand that as a baseline I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, like ever right?”
She laughed, “Oh, I’m well aware.”
“Beautiful. Glad we understand each other.”
She began to guide him out, “Things will be different for you.”
“How so?” he asked nervously.
“I’ve decided to…help a bit. To replace the pieces you lost when your father decided to break you with his fear. Your power will be as it should have always been.”
“That’s kind of you, but it wasn’t his fear that broke me.”
They’d reached the exit and as he stepped out onto the sand she gave him a sad look.
“Yes it was, Klaus. It was his fear all along. You don't need to carry it with you.”
If anyone had taken the time to look. To look at where his palms rested softly across his chest, they would see familiar words pressed into his skin. Words that hadn’t been there when he died.
The door opened, letting the light in. Five couldn’t stand it, but it was Viktor so he was less prone to annoyance at the company.
“Five,” Viktor started, turning on a lamp. He turned to the younger older man in the corner of the room, eyeing the bottle in his hands. “Have you eaten anything?”
Five scoffed, “I don’t know. Since when?”
“Since the last time you ate something?”
He shrugged. Did it really matter? Alcohol had calories.
Viktor sighed, walking passed Klaus’s bed and into the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned with a sandwich and a glass of water. An offering. Five ignored it.
“Please?” Viktor pleaded. When Five didn’t reach for the plate, Viktor placed it on the edge of the TV stand before taking a seat on the other bed. “It's been three days.”
“He doesn’t smell.” Five replied before taking a drink. And it was true and it didn’t make sense.
“We need to bury him.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Five, he’s gone.”
Five stood, knocking the plate to the floor, “I’m not burying him again Viktor! I told him that. I promised myself that.” covering the tops of his shoes with peanut butter and marshmallows.
“He’s not coming back this time.”
“45 years in the ground-”
“Then we’ll figure out how to cremate him-”
“Suffocating over and over and over-” Five blinked, catching his brother’s words for the first time with a derisive laugh. “Cremation? So he can wake up in an oven? No, fuck that.” He stepped forward aggressively, Klaus on the bed at his back. “I came back for all of you. And if my brother needs a few days or a fucking month to return for the dead I will give him that.”
Viktor stood, “He’s my brother too!”
“Then act like it!”
“Someone around here has to keep their shit together!” Viktor shouted back. Five wasn’t entirely sure when he’d raised his voice, but here they were. He stepped back. “All of you still think that I’m on the outside. I’m not Five. I swear to God, I’m here with you. I’m grieving too.”
Five nodded. “I can’t-”
“We have too.”
Five glared, “No we don’t. Not yet.”
“And what if he comes for us again? The Old Man?” Viktor snapped, “Are we supposed to run out of here with Klaus’s decomposing body slung over Luther’s shoulders? Do you not see how fucked up that is?”
Five paused, before looking Viktor dead in the eyes, “If you try to take him out of here. If you try to burn him or bury him, you’ll regret it.”
But Viktor wasn’t looking at him. His brown eyes were focused behind him.
Suddenly, a small golden light fell between them, like a firefly or a spark from a child’s firework. The light landed his hand and slipped beneath Five’s skin.
Viktor began slapping his shoulder, trying to get him to turn around. Though a bit addled, Five eventually took the hint.
Klaus’s body was no longer on the bed.
No, it was five feet above it.
“What the fuc-”
“Marigold.” Viktor whispered in awe.
From the wounds on their brother’s chest spilled the lights. The Marigold. The energy that gave them power. The sparks began to fill the room around them, to slip through the walls. To fall on them, into them. Dozens of them, hundreds. Five soon began to feel the familiar energy bubbling beneath the surface.
It felt right. It felt like Home.
Klaus’s fingertips glowed blue. The color traveling up his arms before expanding out from his chest into some sort of forcefield.
The door burst open as the others pushed into the room.
“What the shit?!” Diego gasped in tandem with Luther’s “Jesus Christ-”
Five began laughing in earnest. The bottle of whiskey in his hand falling to the floor.
Leave it to Klaus to come back in the most dramatic fashion possible.
When his brother’s eyes opened and they were a startling blue.
The forcefield began pulsing outward in waves, carrying the Marigold with it.
Across the country, Allison dropped her wine glass. It fell to the floor and shattered. As Ray’s false eyes gazed at her with concern. She knew she wasn’t alone anymore.
Across the planet, Ben smiled as the Marigold surrounded him.
And just a few miles away, an Old Man’s gaze looked down on them from a high tower.
“I warned you,” Abigail whispered to her husband. “Killing him was a mistake.”
“Yes, I see that now-”
“And yet, you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I can’t imagine She’s pleased.”
Reginald looked at his wife. Bringing his hand up to cup her face only for it to pass through her meeting no resistance, “No, I don’t believe She is.”
When the light show was over, with limbs flailing, Klaus fell to the bed with an “Ooof” and bounced onto the floor on the side away from his siblings.
An exclamation went out from the group before Klaus shouted back, “I’m ok!” A hand raised into the air and waved with a “Hello” before its owner pushed himself into a sitting position so he could look at them all.
With his chin resting on the mattress, a laugh on his lips and his green eyes brimming with mirth, Klaus blew an errant curl out of his face and said.
“So, who’s up for kickstarting the Apocalypse?”