Chaotic Good | the umbrella academy

FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
' MAKING EVERYTHING WORSE. '

Eddie awoke with a start, eyes desperately searching her surroundings and trying to work out where she was.

"Woah, woah, woah." Diego put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back against the sofa gently. "Take a breath for me. There we go. We're back at the hotel."

She didn't reply, her eyes flickering to the windows before her mouth parted. "What?" Eddie pushed him away, trying to get to her feet, but her knees crumbled when she put weight on them. Her hands shot out and grabbed Diego's jacket, his hands keeping her steady. She gasped softly and shook her head.

Everything was foggy, and the ground felt like it was mush.

"Let's just take it steady, okay?" Diego set her down on the sofa again. "You slept through a lot."

"What do you mean?"

"The Kugelblitz broke free. The, uh, the universe is-is ending."

"Where are the others?"

"They're in the foyer."

Eddie looked at him for a long moment. "Looks like we're dying together."

The corner of Diego's lips lifted. "Looks like," he replied. "You wanna go see them?" Eddie gave him a look, and he sighed. "I know, I know, stupid question."

She leaned heavily on Diego as they made their way to the foyer. Her whole body felt like a rag doll, and she barely had control of her limbs. Towards the end, she had to drag her feet across the carpet. He kicked open the door, both of his hands focused on keeping her upright.

"A little help!" he called. Eddie's dead weight was harder to deal with than he expected.

Five spatial jumped to grab the door.

"Fucking hell, this is embarrassing," she murmured, avoiding looking at anyone. She fell into a seat, catching her breath before shifting to get comfortable. Giving a small smile to Diego, who returned a wink. "So, uh, Diego said the world's ending."

Allison stepped forward. "I wanna know how it is that we're still here, but the whole of the universe is going down the cosmic shitter."

"Maybe we're the last to get flushed," Viktor offered with a shrug.

"Wasn't talking to you."

Eddie's eyes fell into a furrow. "Where's Klaus?"

"Or Dad?" Sloane added.

"They'll be here," Diego reassured.

"Really?" Ben raised his eyebrow. "Did they... hit traffic?"

Diego scoffed but stepped forward and looked around his siblings. "Look, people, we're alive because we're special, right? We're the only ones who can save the universe."

"Uh," Allison lifted her hand sarcastically. "Question. Didn't we just try that and fail miserably?"

"Yeah, it's because his plan was stupid," Diego replied, glaring at Ben. "I got a better one."

"'Course you do," Ben murmured under his breath.

"We go with the large hard-on particle accelerator. You guys do some science, and-" He clicked his tongue, "-we launch the Kugelblitz into outer space. Didn't think I knew that, did ya? It's in Switzerland."

"It's hadron," Ben corrected. "not hard-on, you moron!"

Lila stepped up beside him. "Oi! At least he's trying, you shitty little squid. What have you contributed?"

"Actually," Diego glanced at her. "He did blow up half his family."

"Oh, you wanna talk about family problems?" Ben got to his feet. "You know what should have blown up is your face on that neck!"

The two men got into each other's faces. "I wish I had a cake to hit you with it in your face!"

Eddie's eyebrows rose as they began to insult each other in different languages. She knew she understood their words, but her brain was so foggy she couldn't interpret their meanings.

"Hey!" Five shouted. "You guys done? The universe is disappearing outside. So you can keep rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic if it makes you feel better, but the fact remains that we are too late."

"Five, come on," Luther began.

"It's over, Luther," he snapped back. "We failed."

"Come on. It can't be over over," Viktor tried.

"Yeah," Diego agreed. "Come on, Five. We gotta figure this out, man."

Five let out a long sigh, shaking his head and walking away. He moved past Eddie's chair, and she watched him move, seeing the tension in his body.

She looked back to the siblings. "These last 28 days have been really tough for all of us." She ignored Allison's scoff. "But I see where Five is coming from. We've tried to stop the world ending, sure, but what actually have we done about it? We've just prolonged the doom. We haven't accomplished anything."

"Well, we made some friends along the way," Luther offered.

"I was more looking at it from the angle of making everything worse, Luther, but if you value that, I respect it."

"Look," Five moved back and placed a hand on the back of Eddie's chair. "When I went to the Commission, I had a conversation with my 100-year-old self, and my last words were, 'Don't save the world.'"

"Don't save the world?" Viktor repeated.

"Don't save the world," he confirmed.

Diego scoffed. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Is it?" Luther challenged softly. "Well, whatever we're doing's not working. All we ever do is save the world for a day, pat ourselves on the back, and then everything goes to shit again."

"Yeah, maybe we're the problem," Viktor agreed.

Allison rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah. Us."

Eddie let out a piece of air through her nose but remained quiet. She was too tired to argue.

"So, wait," Lila stepped forward with furrowed eyebrows. "Your big plan is... no plan?"

"I quite like those plans," Eddie added.

"Exactly. Conscientious objection." Five snapped his fingers at Lila. "Why the hell not? We've tried everything else. Look, maybe this is just what the universe needs. I say, embrace the apocalypse. See what's on the other side."

Sloane glanced at Luther. "What if it's... nothing?" she asked softly.

"Then it's been nice knowing you all." He glanced at Eddie. "Whatever's on your bucket list, I recommend you do that now."

Luther shifted, glancing at Sloane. "Well, on that... super happy note, we've, um... Oh, what the hell." They laughed. "Okay. We've, uh, got a little announcement to make."

"We're engaged!"

Eddie gasped, clapping her hands. "Congratulations!"

"Now?" Allison asked over the murmurs of the others.

"Yeah," he answered. "Look, we realise the timing is less than ideal. But, obviously, it's now or never. Am I right, Five?"

"Don't drag me into this, please," he replied quietly, shaking his head.

"What..." Sloane began. "Whatever time we have left, we wanna spend it with all of you. So we're super pumped if you would join us in the banquet hall at 6:00 p.m. for a celebration of our love and the official union of what's left of our two great families."

"Dress code is creative black-tie," Luther added before they turned away and left.

The room was silent for a moment in their absence.

"This is when I'm so annoyed I left my extensive suit collection in the 60s."