A/N: So I originally wasn't going to write this at all since it turns out that rewrites are really, really bad for my mental health. But then, my brain refused to leave me alone about the fact that this series was just sitting unfinished. So I decided that I would write it as an overview with shoddy descriptions just to get it out there and finished. Sorry if this isn't what you were hoping for!

With three very young children, birthdays were an absolute headache. They had to make sure that the child or children whom didn’t have the birthday on that day didn’t get too jealous and that the birthday child or children felt special and appreciated on their day. There was also the matter of corralling a bunch of children that were laced with certain amounts of sugar and more excited than physically possible to be. It would have been a lot easier if their children’s friend’s parents actually stuck around to do their job, but the three of them understood why they didn’t.

Still, Viktor had gotten overwhelmed and so took a step outside so that he could smoke. He had picked up the habit while reconnecting with Allison a few years into being in the new dimension. It had been a learning curve and a half to use ‘I statements’ and actually listen to her when she talked. A number of their siblings had moderated their conversation and Diego and Klaus had surprisingly been the two that were able to handle everything the best. Luther usually ended up taking someone’s side or asking if they could just let it go. Five had basically no patience for what Allison was saying about his husband and Lila made far too many jokes about her husband or snapped at Allison for something she viewed as too far. Diego had been to a bit of court mandated therapy when he was in the asylum in Texas, so he knew the way to drag information out of people and read between the lines of what they were saying. Klaus was just generally good at getting under someone’s skin and figuring out what their actual thoughts were, always had been.

The family was back together, nice and proper. They got along for the most part and tried to spend a fair amount of time hanging out with each other, which was why the rest of the Umbrellas had been invited to a child’s birthday party. The only person that couldn’t be considered civil even on the best of days was Ben, but he didn’t really count since they had lost their version of him when his ghost had stopped the world from ending back in Dallas. He had gone to prison for a number of years because he had scammed thousands of people out of their life savings for a lie that he had fallen for himself on social media. Allegedly, Luther was going to save him from himself and make him a decent person. Allison had apologized for all her misplaced anger and was taking counseling very seriously as she figured out how to best place her emotions and actually deal with them. Luther was working as a stripper because he liked being able to show off his body in a way that he could control. Diego worked as a boxing instructer and had a couple of matches when he felt like his body could handle it. Klaus was struggling with his sobriety quite a lot, but he had his entire family rallying behind him to keep him on the straight and narrow. Lila, Five, and Viktor were still together and going very strong, though that shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone since Viktor had been together with them since the beginning.

It was nice to think about the fact that he was properly loved and cared for now that his family had been through something all together, which bonded them to each other forever. He was lost in those memories when something hit him on the back of the head and sent him down to the ground.

Inside, Five and Lila continued on with the party until the children’s parents began to come and pick them up. They helped get the rest of the kids out of the ball pits and hidden in the backrooms of the arcade to wait for everyone else in the lobby when they finally noticed that Viktor wasn’t around. The rest of the siblings went out to try and look for him when they discovered that he wasn’t answering his cell. Five took the kids home so that they could be watched by Lila’s parents, who had moved to America to live with her and her partners even if they didn’t fully understand the unconventional lifestyle that she was leading. Lila stayed with the other guests until the last of the parents had been through to pick up their demonic six-year-old.

By the time that they all regrouped with each other, they had found the ransom note demanding that they could to a specific laundromat that Diego was familiar with. So they loaded up into the back of The Briefcase, which was what Five jokingly called their van since it was the only way that they could transport themselves long distances with time passing now. They drove to the place where the note had demanded they’d come and were met with something quite bizarre.

The man that had kidnapped Viktor had done so because his daughter had been brought into a strange cult, one that Five and Lila had already been following in their job working for the CIA. He showed them some of the evidence that the cult had collected and explained that it was what tipped his daughter over the edge and landed with her in a tiny town up in Maine. One of the things within the box that he provided them with was a swirling jar that had little particles in it, similar to what had been extracted from them when they were in the big machine that had reset the universe.

It all got worked out in the end as they found themselves in a little diner with basically no other patrons. Five extracted the jar of marigold and placed it down on the counter, surprising everyone but his partners who knew that he had already snagged it.

That resulted in a too long conversation about whether or not they were going to take the Marigold and get their powers back. Allison was inclined towards taking it, likely because her life was falling apart around her now that she didn’t have the ability to manipulate everyone into doing what she wanted. The rest of them leaned towards not wanting it anymore, especially Viktor. He had learned how to live his life without the power before so had snapped back into that very easily. His abilities had been what caused them to go through the whole mess about the end of the world in the first place, so to him it made logical sense to not bother with the mess of powers ever again.

Like with any discussion that he had with his siblings, it resulted in someone making the decision for him. They all woke up the next day feeling as though they had gotten run over by something large and heavy. Stuffy noses, sour stomachs, and aching muscles were something that couldn’t be blamed away just on the food that they had eaten the night before and the stress of the holidays around the corner.

So after making sure that their children were fed and on the way to school, the trio piled into the car to go find the rest of their siblings. They met up at the remnants of the house that had apparently been a boy’s home in the reset universe. There it came out that Ben had dosed them with the Marigold so that they could have their powers back and be something again. It was clear to everyone but him that he was the only one that was nothing without his powers, they all had personalities and identities outside of the Academy.

Still, they were plagued with the hangover from their drugging and now had to ride it out together. They decided that it would be best to get out into the middle of nowhere as they headed up to New Grumpson, the place where the man that had kidnapped Viktor said his daughter was located. If their powers ended up coming out in massive bursts then it would be safer for them to be out on the open road instead of in the crowded city that they lived in.

It was a good thing that they had made that call too because about two hours into driving, things began to explode. Viktor had already known that his powers were far stronger than they had been in the past universes based on what happened when he got mad at Ben back in Luther’s condemned house, but it was still shocking when all the windows in their van shattered at once. They were able to pull over when people were beginning to get sick, but that was when they noticed that Klaus was fine.

It was quickly revealed that despite him falling off the wagon more times than any of them could count, he had managed to get around the drugged sake just fine. Most of them were proud of him for not drinking when Ben had pressured him to but they were all kind of annoyed that he was the only one not suffering from their magical universe juice hangover.

When they finally made it to the tiny town in Main, they split up so that they could go searching. Klaus stayed back in the car since he had no powers and wouldn’t be able to defend himself from anything or be much use with how nervous he was now. Five went to go work on his own since he was always better like that, he got too distracted when either of his partners were around despite Lila also being trained by the CIA and Commission. Diego and Lila went to scope out the town square while looking for toys that he could bring to Grace since he had forgotten a birthday present for her the day before. Luther and Viktor went to an antique shop together where they chatted a bit about Sloane and how the search for her was going. Allison followed behind them but stayed quiet since she was the one to make Sloane disappear in that machine.

Luther barely had the money for a computer, so the search for his wife was going slow. All of them also understood that it was entirely possible she wouldn’t love him in the new universe since she wouldn’t have been brought up in the same way. Luther held out hope, though, and thought of her in everything that he did.

It was around that time that they noticed something was wrong. The woman in the wheelchair that supposedly owned the antique shop that they were at pulled a gun on them, which sent their powers into overdrive so they could protect themselves. Lila and Diego did the same in the town square, fighting off the maniacs with guns and getting back to the van. Klaus had believed he discovered Jennifer, but the woman was shot and then Ben appeared with the real Jennifer. They got all their things loaded up into the van and then began to drive away as quickly as they could.

That was when it was revealed that Klaus had been shot. The only way that they could think to save him was to give him his old powers back. After all, that was what had saved him from all the stupidity of his life before in the past universe. So Allison tipped the jar of Marigold into his wound and then waited with baited breath for him to come back to life. 

Once he did, there was quite a bit of shouting. Klaus was mad at them for giving him back the powers that had tormented him for so much of his life. They were all mad at him for not being thankful for them saving his life.

Eventually they all got back into the car and continued on their way. Viktor felt a lot better than he had before, now that the hangover from their powers was beginning to ware off. He was a lot happier when he and his partners got home and were able to see their children. It was only for a little bit, though, as they were quickly called back out into the world. Luther and Allison were planning on finding Reginald and giving him a piece of their mind before they tried to take information from him.

Viktor was on board for that in a heartbeat despite wanting to spend some time with his family. It had bothered him his entire life, the reasoning behind taking his powers away and treating him as Reginald had. He knew now that he would never be able to do that to his own children, in fact he took deliberate care to make sure that each of them knew that they were special in their own unique ways and were loved more than the entire world.

So when they arrived at the grand mansion where the Hargreeves lived, he was rather annoyed to be met with the wife instead of the husband. Abigail was kind enough as she explained some of what had happened in better terms than Reginald had. She told them that the marigold had been something that she created in her attempts to understand the universe better, but at the same time that she had created the marigold something called durango had also been made. They were informed that was what was inside of Jennifer and why it was bad that they had been in close proximity to her.

That was when Luther revealed that Ben had likely touched her, which was why the two of them had disappeared not long after they had gotten back to The City.

Before they left the house, Reginald did approach them and Viktor was finally able to get out his feelings. A lot of shouting and power pouring from the super nova that once more lived in the center of his chest had made him feel more sedated and comfortable. Abigail had managed to calm them all down and get them up to his lab so that they could have their memories extracted. 

Luther, Diego, and Allison were the ones that actually remembered what had happened to Ben back in their own timeline since Viktor hadn’t been allowed to come to any of the missions. They all lashed out at him as well, though none of them had the power and vitriol to be as angry as Viktor had. When they stormed out of the house and left their brother behind, it meant that Viktor was the one that had to take up the job of going with Reginald so that they could find Ben and Jennifer.

He got to talk to his children and explain was happening to his in-laws before he left, but there was something heavy in his stomach that was convincing him he was never going to hear their little voices again while he was leaving.

In the meantime, Lila and Five had gone out to an empty field that they knew about from their time working with the CIA so that they could explore their powers more. Lila paced the field and discovered that she could pick up on different powers depending on where she was. Five speculated that she was actually reaching across universes, but he wasn’t entire sure. They discovered that every single time Five jumped, he was down in the subway again and then back up like no time had passed at all.

That was when Lila suggested that they use the subway to find a way to make sure that Ben had never died, as a way to try and protect the universes from ending. It was kind of hair brained and stupid, but they had something very precious that they had to fight for. Five may not have known it six years ago, but when their daughter was born and placed into his arms she became his entire world. He would give up thousands of universes and lives just to make sure that she was okay and happy, the same for the twins as well.

They jumped down into the subway and then began to explore the forgotten structure. They discovered more tunnels and trains. They delved further into it with nothing more than the confusing language on the walls and a hand map that they had found early on. They didn’t know how much time was passing outside of the need to sleep creeping further up on them and hunger gnawing at their stomachs. Five was quickly lost back into the man that he had become when he was trying to survive in the first apocalypse, but this time he actually had one of his partners with him.

Lila kept track of the times that they had to sleep in one of her notepads and used that as the days they had been away. Five kept track of where they had gone in his notebook, though Lila had teased him for it in the beginning. They took care of each other and made sure that sanity didn’t wane too far and leave one of them as a husk of what they should have been. They held the other when they were sick, nursed injuries, and soothed nightmares that came from what should have been pleasant dreams. Mostly, they grew closer in how much they missed Viktor and their children.

After seven years, they finally conceded that they couldn't keep doing this. They traced the single stop back to a universe that they had found post-apocalypse. There were no people, but there was a lovely victorian mansion with a greenhouse garden that supplied them with plenty of food. They made a life for themselves up top and tried their best to forget about the subway when they weren't exploring it for the purpose of collecting scrap metal.

Five had given her a gift to celebrate their marriage, they had passed ten years when they were lost somewhere in the subway so the gift he had gotten her for supposedly unlucky thirteen was something nice and sentimental. She had cuddled against him and cried her entire heart out about how much she missed their husband. He knew the moment that he delved down into the subway that he needed to try and look for that book. It had come to him then, where he had dropped it, so he immediately picked it up and let her know that they could get home.

They had missed a couple of stops when he had lost it the first time, but they remembered those enough to be able to get back. The two of them spent the next couple of months getting enough supplies together that they would be able to find their way back. 

They did just that, of course. They rushed back to their house and found that Viktor was still gone. That didn’t stop them from hugging their children like they hadn’t seen them in years. It was true for them while it just confused their little ones to the end of the earth.

Once they had finished doting on their children, they filled their siblings in on what had happened. They both waited anxiously by the phone for Viktor to call, only being pulled away from it when their children asked for them. They had spent so long away from their husband that it felt like their heart was being crushed as the moments dragged slowly by. They’d had each other when they were struggling through the blank loneliness of the subway, but Viktor had been the one to bring them together and the one to make their hearts sing with adoration, so it felt wrong to be in their home without him after longing for him.

The call finally came late into the night after the kids had been put to bed. Five was the one to pick up the phone, but he and Lila quickly shared the receiver as they listened to the story that he had. He and Reginald were somewhere in the middle of New Grumpson and The City, they had been tracking Ben and Jennifer. They explained what they had been doing and promised that there would be a tearful reunion when they all found each other again.

Five and Lila gave a tearful goodbye to their sleeping children. It ached something fierce to have to leave them again when they had just gotten them back. While neither of the ex-Commission Agents had ever believed that they would really have a family, despite Lila and Viktor planning to have kids, they had taken to it like a duck on water. It hurt to know that their children had faded from their memories after seven long years had passed and now they were having to leave again after just getting them back.

Being reunited with Viktor made up for the pain. They were able to hold the small man in their arms once more, kissing all over his face. They had reminded themselves that barely any time had passed for the rest of their family over and over again, but barely did anything to satiate the overwhelming adoration pouring out of their bodies.

That was before Viktor had told them the plan and they had almost immediately told him they wouldn’t do it. Reginald and the other members of the Academies managed to convince them into it, though.

Lila and Viktor entered into the hotel that Ben and Jennifer had holed themselves up in. Lila hid behind a desk so that the monster Ben had turned into wouldn’t be able to see her. Allison slipped in from a window on the other side of the room.

Viktor approached the Ben monster while keeping a close eye on the Jennifer one that was slowly shambling down the steps. His voice was calm and compassionate as he tried to convince him to stand down and come get help. When it became obvious that wasn’t going to work, Allison used her mind control powers, updated thanks to the raw marigold in her system, told him that he had to hold still. She did the same thing to Jennifer and then held her in one place with a barrage of her powers.

Lila and Viktor jumped into motion then. They were on either side of Ben at that point and were able to extract the mess of marigold and durango from him with each other. Viktor was the one that held it after that because they couldn’t just let it go yet. Lila turned to do the same thing to Jennifer, and once she had the massive ball of raw energy and element in her hands she pulled the two apart and released them. Viktor did the same thing before he collapsed down into the ground, both of them exhausted from the overuse of their powers.

A/N: So if you've been reading the other works in this story you might have noticed that this fic is shorter than the others by about 7-10k and that's because I didn't want to rewrite as much as I had when I wrote them. I wanted to get this out before S4 came out even though that's almost a year away just to make sure I didn't forget, but I was also kind of burned out. I felt like a lot of the stuff in this season didn't need to be rewritten but I didn't add as many scenes as I usually do and I apologize for that. If you're sad that there won't be more fiktorla content after this then there's a high chance I will write some more elsewhere that isn't related to this rewrite. Thank you all so much for reading! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

They appeared back in the home that had been a prison to them for years, but now it seemed like the most wonderful place that any of them could be. They were all in pain from the fight that they had just endured and the stressful situation that they had just escaped, but it was clear that relief was heavy within the group. “Oh, we’re finally home!” Klaus clapped his hands above his head as he turned in a circle, as if trying to make sure that the building they were in was really their childhood home.

“Wait, wait, what’s the date?” Five asked. He set down the briefcase that had brought them there and then lurched for the newspaper on the table. He picked it up and flipped it over to reveal the date, which made his shoulders slump in relief. “April second, we’ve finally evaded the apocalypse.”

“I mean, it makes sense. The Handler was the one that set the whole thing up and we killed her back in the sixties. What with the time traveling causing some problems I’m not one hundred percent sure that it clears it up, but if she died back then it’s going to be hard for her to come forward and then drug me again,” Viktor said. He brought the side of his thumb up to his mouth so that he could bite at the skin there to help soothe his nerves. 

Five reached over and grasped his hand, threading their fingers together to give him something else to focus on. “We’ll figure it out. There’s bound to be changes in the timeline because of everything that we did back in the sixties and the fact that we had an interaction with Dad before he was ever supposed to meet us, but we’re going to take it one step at a time.”

“Screw taking things one step at a time, I’m going to get so wasted,” Klaus laughed as he staggered towards the living room where their father’s wet bar was.

The rest of the siblings followed after him as none of them really wanted to be apart from each other after everything that had happened. Viktor detached from Five and fell back so that he was walking beside Allison. “Are you okay? I can’t imagine how awful it must be to have to leave someone you love that much behind, even if it was for his own good,” he said, his voice soft and compassionate.

“I don’t even know if it really was for his own good,” Allison let out a short laugh. “I mean, do you know how awful it is to be a person of color back then? I couldn’t walk down the street to my own home without being afraid of every little sound that I heard.”

“I’m so sorry that you had to go through that,” Viktor whispered. “Of course I don’t know what it’s like to be a person of color in any time period, I’ve always been white, but the sixties were a shit time to be any minority. I thought that I was actually insane for a while until Diego managed to drill it into me that I was normal and they were the wrong ones. There are only so many times you can have someone scream in your face that being a boy trapped in a girl’s body isn’t something that actually exists before you start to believe it.”

Allison turned to him, her face soft. “That’s awful, Viktor. I’m glad that Diego was there to help you so that you had someone like I did. Hopefully we never have to deal with something like that ever again.”

“Yeah,” Viktor nodded in agreement. “And if we do, we should try to stick together. We minorities have to have some kind of solidarity even if the way that we’re hated is different.”

She beamed and nodded, knocking their shoulders together playfully. Viktor hoped that she would trust him enough to come to him if she needed something, that he could actually help her. It was true that their experiences in the sixties were very different, since she had been there longer, a woman of color, and actually out in the real world while Viktor was white, trans, and locked away in a mental asylum, but they still shared things that helped them understand each other better. While they hadn’t gotten along very well as children, there was plenty of time for that to change. They were adults now, with developed emotions and flourishing lives that they were both obviously eager to get back to.

Klaus had just gotten up to the cabinet full of liquor when Five noticed that their father was sitting in a chair by the fireplace with a copy of the daily newspaper in his hand. Just as he noticed this, Luther walked up behind him and said, “Hey why is there a portrait of Ben on the mantlepiece?”

“I knew that the six of you would be coming back someday,” Reginald said as he neatly folded the paper up and then stood to face them. It was a chilling experience, being face-to-face with their father again after so long had passed for them. This version of their father also knew who they were more than the one in the sixties had, which brought a whole host of issues by itself.

“Hey Dad, you’re not dead,” Klaus laughed as he walked up beside his siblings with a whiskey bottle clenched in his hands. 

“No, why would I be?” Reginald asked as he looked over all of them with that judgemental eye like he had done throughout their entire childhoods.

“No, no reason,” Luther said as he took a step forward so that he was in front of the rest of the group. Allison and Viktor had also fallen in line with their siblings, on edge now that their father was alive unlike he had been the last time they had been here. He turned and glanced at the rest of his siblings for a moment. “I guess we’re just glad to be home.”

“This isn’t your home,” Reginald shook his head.

“What are you talking about?” Allison asked, her voice pitching slightly. Five glanced at her with a wary eye. He had spent a lot of time with people that had been displaced from their homes and their families when they got recruited to be a part of the Commission. He also knew that she had given up her happy life as a civil right’s activist with a husband that she loved very much in the hopes that they would be able to return to a future where everything was the way that they had left it minus an apocalypse or two, so it had to be stressful for her to even have an inclining that the world wasn’t what she was expecting. Her want to stay in a time where she didn’t belong that was actively messing up the timeline was the reason that he had urged her to come with them but had specifically made sure that he didn’t promise anything from the future they were heading to.

Allison let out a breathless laugh as she gestured widely around her, “This is the Umbrella Academy.”

“No, it’s not,” Reginald laughed. “This is the Sparrow Academy. After your show in Dallas, I made sure to seek out children like you that weren’t you. I did a shoddy job in the other timeline raising you, so I corrected those mistakes.”

Someone walked up behind them, which caused them to flip around so that they were looking at who it was. They were all hyper-aware of what was happening around them as their instincts and training kicked in.

Viktor felt all of the blood drain from his face as he realized that the individual that had walked up behind them was none other than Ben. He looked a lot different than he had the last time that the man had seen him. He was fully realized, solid in a way that a ghost couldn’t be even in the world of Viktor’s mind. He was wearing a maroon jacket with blue piping, which matched the blue vest and tie. Ben also had a massive scar down the side of his face, trailing from the lowest part of his hair all the way down his cheekbone. His hair was cut short and spiked upward, a style that the Ben they knew would have never had.

“Ben?” Klaus asked, his eyes going wide. 

Five and Viktor glanced at each other, both understanding what their brother was going through. It had to be difficult to be best friends with a person for their entire unlife and then to lose them, only for another version of them to pop up in the universe that no one knew anything about.

“Nice hat, sundance,” the Ben in front of them sneered. 

That alone confirmed that it was an entirely different person than the one that they had grown up with. Their Ben was kind and compassionate, even if he had a sharp tongue and the ability to pick out someone’s flaws with deadly accuracy. The man in front of them probably hadn’t stepped foot into a library since he needed to study for school and their Ben wouldn’t be caught dead without a book within twenty feet of him.

“Oh, thank you,” Klaus beamed as he touched the brim of the black cowboy hat. Klaus had always been really bad at picking up on social cues, though.

“W-wait, this isn’t possible. This is the Umbrella Academy, we grew up here,” Allison shouted, beginning to get obviously more and more upset.

“Uh, I think we would have noticed you,” one of the other superheroes snorted. The rest of the other Academy had made their way down to the ground floor so that they were standing in front of the others.

Ben leaned around them so that he was speaking to their father, “Dad, who are these freaks?”

Reginald was already packing up what he had been doing so that he could vacate the room. That in and of itself was odd, since their father had always been somewhat present during the missions that Five had been sent on so that he could see their progress in real time for his log book. “They call themselves the Umbrella Academy. Smelly, ill-manner, perfidious malcontents.”

“Well that’s just not true,” Viktor said quickly. He didn’t enjoy being insulted, especially since he had just spent the last month or so being told that he was wrong, dirty, and shameful. 

“Yeah, we’re ameteur-fidious at best,” Klaus defended.

“Klaus,” Diego hissed to try and make his brother shut up before they got in even more trouble than they were already in.

“I think it would be best if you left our house,” the man that was seemingly the leader of the Sparrows took a step forward so that he was standing in front of Luther. 

“You mean our house,” Luther replied.

Viktor felt a familiar anxiety setting into the base of his stomach. It was a feeling that he got often as a child when he knew that his siblings were about to start a fight with each other. That usually resulted in their father punishing everyone but Viktor, since Viktor had no powers and thus wasn’t a real member of the Academy, which then resulted in everyone hating Viktor more than they had when the day started. Things were different now, but he had a feeling that it was still going to go sour very quickly.

“I guess we just have to settle this the old fashioned way, then, don’t we?” the leader of the Sparrows asked as he approached Luther once more. 

The first punch was thrown before anyone else could say something to stop them from fighting, not that Viktor was even planning on trying. Immediately after, fighting broke out between everyone there.

The siblings all scattered as they tried to deal with the superhero team that was attacking them. Diego launched towards the floating, mocking cube with one of his knives already clutched in his hand. Luther was duking it out with the other leader of the Academy. Viktor darted to the side to try and get away but was followed by the same woman that had spit on Diego when all of the negotiations first started. Five teleported away to deal with some of the other members just as Allison lurched after the woman in glasses. They were outnumbered seven to six, but they were also feral with anger and fear so they were holding their ground relatively well.

Five found himself standing up on the landing in front of the woman that had initially gone after his boyfriend, something that made him see white hot rage right behind his eyes. He lurched forward with his hand balled up in a fist and before she had the chance to react, he teleported behind her and then clocked her across the face. Despite not knowing what his powers were, she still turned around and then spit on him before she crumbled down to the ground like a wet paper sack.

“Gross,” Five whispered as he swiped his hand across his face to try and get rid of the saliva, but he found that there was nothing there. His body began to lock up like it did when Allison’s rumors took hold of him and he was transported to somewhere that he had only seen once before.

He was standing in the living room of the apartment that Viktor and Lila had been living in when he had finally managed to find his way back to them. All of the items that had been strewn about the shelves and the walls were packed up in boxes that were huddled close to the door. He turned around in a circle and saw that the kitchen and bedroom down the hall were also packed up in much the same way. “What’s going on?” he asked, though the words felt like they were being muttered underwater.

Lila was there, then, standing at his side with her fingers threaded together with his. He turned his head to the side and saw the small bump that was protruding from her stomach and the dopey smile spread over her face. Five felt his heart jump up into his chest as he realized that she was pregnant, they were moving because she was pregnant. He didn’t know how to feel about that, that she and Viktor had so readily moved on without him. “You know, when you said that you were going to make Luther and Diego have a pissing contest so that we didn’t have to carry any of the boxes I thought that you were lying,” she let out a little chuckle. “You were right, though, this does work way better.”

“Cars packed up, babe,” Viktor said as he appeared in the doorway. He walked over to them and then kissed them both slowly, languidly. “Are you ready to move onto the next step in our lives?”

“Yes, Gods above, yes,” Five whispered as he reached up with his free hand to cup Viktor’s cheek and kiss him harder.

A moment later the mirage melted away like ice on a hot sidewalk, removing itself from his eyes so that he was left standing directly where he had been before. He tried to ignore the way that his heart ached in his chest at the idea of that not being the world that he lived in. He didn’t want to be reminded of all the mistakes that he had made that resulted in this being the reality they were now stuck in.