Killer Queen

2.

< March 24th 2019 >

Since arriving at the Umbrella Academy, it hadn't felt as though this occasion was particularly depressing because even though the siblings were coming together to grieve their father; at the same time, none of them were that upset that he had died. They had all experienced a traumatic childhood thanks to him and even when becoming adults, it was only Luther that stayed in contact with him and that was because of his mission to the moon. Diego was the least compassionate out of all of his siblings, wanting more to celebrate the fact that their father was dead than grieve him, but because Kate was around, he didn't want to act disrespectful in any way as he knew that she understood what it was like to lose a parent. Now that things had taken an unexpected turn with the arrival of Number Five, the siblings were even more confused about what was happening and were shocked to see their brother back from wherever he had been but more confused as to why he still looked around thirteen years old when many years had passed.

Five walked straight past them and down to the kitchen, where he began preparing himself a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. As a skilled baker, it was painful to watch him make a sandwich as disgusting as that but considering he was going through some kind of crisis, Kate decided not to say anything. The other siblings were dotted around the kitchen, all trying to understand how this was possible and wondering why today, their brother decided to come back to the Academy. He could have time-jumped at any moment, but he had chosen the day of their father's funeral to return home; somehow looking the exact same as he did when he left. Five seemed to be in a world of his own as he fixed up his sandwich but by the look on his face, whatever he was thinking about was very serious and he suddenly realised that he needed his siblings for help. "What's the date? The exact date?"

"The 24th." Vanya answered quickly, not understanding why that mattered.

"Of what?"

"March."

He took a moment to think about it and then nodded in approval. "Good."

"So, are we going to talk about what just happened?" Luther asked as he stood up from the table, trying to control the situation. "It's been seventeen years."

"It's been a lot longer than that." Five says before jumping to another part of the room and making Kate jump, the others didn't even blink because they were used to this behaviour so she tried not to make a big deal out of the powers that she had just witnessed.

Luther frowned and muttered under his breath. "I haven't missed that."

"Where did you go?" Diego questioned, wanting to know more details about where his brother had been and what he had been up to for the last few years.

"The future. It's shit, by the way."

"Called it." Klaus said in a sing-song way, thinking that things were breezier than he realised and laughing at the shit future that they had to look forward to.

"I should have listened to the old man. You know, jumping through space is one thing, jumping through time is a toss of the dice." Five paused and took in what his siblings looked like, pointing out what Klaus was wearing on the table. "Nice dress."

"Oh, well, danke!"

Vanya brought the conversation back on track with more questions about the time-jumping that Five had just breezed over. "Wait, how did you get back?"

"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."

"That makes no sense." Diego snapped, unhappy that the description was something that he couldn't understand and the other siblings stayed quiet, but they didn't understand what was happening either.