At half-past six, Vanya was nudging Five awake and telling him to get back to his own room before Grace made the rounds for the wake-up call. He dawdled like he usually did, always reluctant to get out of the warm bed, and didn't leave until close to quarter-to seven. By which time Vanya decided to just get up and start preparing for another day.

Sharing a bed with Five was a habit that persisted after their first week, before Five confronted her about her memories of the future. When they were still pretending everything was the way it had always been.

The early start meant she was the first in the toilet and she squeezed in a quick shower, quickly brushing her teeth when she got out, before scurrying back to her room to dress. She was back inside before the alarm went off and the others started arguing amongst themselves who was getting inside the bathrooms first.

Following breakfast on weekdays', the children had two hours of classes from eight until ten before they would separate for their individual tasks. The Umbrella Academy would go for training while Vanya went to complete her individual curriculum, composed of additional studies in English literature, geography and history alongside subjects only she studied: art, languages and music. Grace and Pogo typically led her in this, but today Pogo was assisting with training and Grace had allowed Vanya to go straight to instrument practice. Grace had been left confused by Vanya's inexplicable improvement in all of her studies (barring math) within the last month and her Mother was having to re-evaluate her lesson plans.

Vanya had been working upstairs in peace for only fifteen minutes, happy to be gifted a relatively unencumbered morning, when there was a knock at the door to her makeshift music room.

She glared at it for a moment before getting up to answer. She knew it was Pogo, his breathing was very distinctive from the average human. A few minutes earlier she had heard him plodding up the staircase and walking along the hall but kept hoping he would continue to his own room and leave her to her piano practice.

Evidentially not.

Plastering on a neutral mask, Vanya opened the door and looked into Pogo's eyes. She wondered if he could see the hatred lurking behind them. It took all of her willpower not to snap at him, instead she genially asked: "Yes, Pogo?"

"Master Hargreeves has requested your presence in the training room."

"Does he want me to time them again?" Vanya asked, confused by the request. On the occasions Reginald had recruited her to be his assistant someone informed her over the breakfast table or shortly after the meal, not while training was already in session.

"I am not sure Number Seven, as he seemed rather impatient, I did not ask." Pogo explained, gesturing to the hallway with his arm. "Let us not keep him waiting any longer than necessary."

Walking out of the room, her back rigid with distrust as she moved in front of him, Vanya led the way downstairs. Pogo was always half a step behind her and with every footfall that triggered a long creak from the floorboards the White Violin imagined using the sound to break him again. She didn't need to impale him on something this time, she had the power to kill him where he stood. Perhaps she could stop the heart she could audibly hear beating beneath his ribs. No one would ever know it wasn't a natural death. Reginald certainly wouldn't suspect meek, sedated Number Seven.

Except her siblings watched her like a hawk and any deviations from the original timeline would draw their suspicion onto her. While it somewhat relieved her that Five knew her amnesia was faked, she didn't dare let her hand slip to the others. Not until she felt capable of trusting them.

Perhaps several years from now.

Vanya flinched when Pogo laid a hand on her shoulder to lead her into the room, glad no one spotted the expression.

"Master Hargreeves." Pogo called, announcing her arrival.

"Number Seven." Reginald called, looking up from his notebook. Luther and Five stood beside him while the others carried out their individual tasks.

Allison was doing burpees while trying to encourage Klaus, who was at her side half-heartedly performing the same exercise looking steadily whiter and whiter as he grew more exhausted.

Diego and Ben were sparring, although she could see there was no heart behind the fight.

They needed to try harder, they only risked giving themselves away. And Five warned her they couldn't do that. It risked alerting his former employers they had entered their old time streams. An ignorance that kept them safe.

Five beckoned her over to his side and Vanya hastened to do so. While she was highly aware that against her the others might as well be armed with water balloons and rubber slingshots, the only time she felt close to being relaxed nowadays was when she was stood beside Number Five. And even he still made her feel uneasy.

How Reginald hadn't figured out yet that Five wasn't the same person anymore was beyond her. The boy she used to know so rarely emerged in the one present today. Five was level-headed, logical and frequently exasperated. Traits he had possessed in childhood, but his commonsensical characteristics back then were often disturbed by impatience (stemming from a not entirely misplaced sense of intellectual superiority), pride and a well-known short-temper. He was more guarded now; she couldn't ever imagine seeing this Five cry or stomp his feet. He didn't smile the same way. His grins were too sharp, teeth ready to bite rather than gleam. An already heightened sense of personal space had grown even stronger and he reacted strongly if anyone laid an unexpected hand on him. Sometimes he felt like a stranger. Other times it felt like they really were thirteen again.

Most days he felt like a gift, one she had cried for throughout her childhood after his disappearance. Back when she used to close her eyes every night to sleep and send out a wish, to someone, anywhere, that her best friend would come back to her and she would no longer have to be alone in that unforgiving house. He was back now but their rhythm was, understandably, shaken. There were no cautious smiles exchanged over a dining table, only weary glances. No shouts from another room in the house calling for her presence, only hushed conversations in quiet rooms.

Number Seven trusted Five implicitly.

Vanya kept being reminded of how he had run at her on that stage, all too ready to kill her.

He had said he would never lock her up, make her take the pills or try to kill her again – he said he loved her. But the words didn't erase the action. And it didn't wash away the fear that perhaps he wouldn't stop the others if they tried to contain or kill her again.

The White Violin refused to let it go and worried away at her, while the real child that Vanya inhabited cried to throw her arms around his neck every time she glimpsed him.

The contrasting urges made her feel like she was being torn apart. With every divergent train of thought the idea would seize her that she should take her pills again, the only guaranteed way to smother that part of her that seemed determined to spill blood. Even the blood of the only people she cared about.

In her restless nights, thinking about the destruction she had wreaked, her imagination largely rested on the crimes she had committed against her family. The billions of others were only a brief registration in her mind and Vanya hated that the White Violin cared so little about them if their deaths brought her the revenge she so wantonly craved. Her own death didn't even seem to matter; the powerful creature within seemed to have no limits to her bloodlust.

And yet, there were times the power seemed ethereally beautiful to her. When the energy coursed through an instrument, as the more positive emotions flowed out of her, during her more brilliant moments when everything aligned and Vanya felt like she could do anything now that the scales had been lifted from her eyes. Even the glow that settled over her skin looked akin to starlight, making her beam from the inside out. But it didn't erase the danger she could become when the bitterness took over.

She had no reason to feel jealousy anymore and yet she did, pitifully so. Before when her siblings' went on missions she felt pain and abandonment, the anguish solely directed at her own sense of ordinariness, worthlessness. Now there was the indignation – she was more powerful than all of them combined. How was it right she was the one left on the sidelines when Klaus, who had only managed projection once and otherwise made no contribution to the missions, could still go? And Luther? He could bend a pipe with his bare hands; did that make him fit to be their leader? Vanya could bring buildings down with her mind.

And it was those thoughts that made her so adamant that the others couldn't know that she remembered. No matter how passionately Five argued otherwise. She couldn't risk being provoked, not when she was accidentally shattering mirrors out of frustration just because her bangs wouldn't lie flat.

Five kept telling her that the Umbrella Academy needed to work together to come up with a plan about the Commission and the apocalypse, but Vanya didn't understand why they were waiting for her to do that. It wasn't like her opinion had ever mattered. Not when they were children deciding where to go on their excursions. Not when they were adults deciding whether to deactivate Mom.

Besides it was Five who would decide, he was the only one who knew their enemy. Number Seven knew he would do the right thing. Number Seven trusted him and she would have to fall in line with his decision, even if she tore herself apart trying to stay in control.

Cautiously, Vanya searched Five's eyes as she came to stand by his side. He nodded in what she supposed was intended as a reassuring gesture.

Reginald was flipping ahead in his journal, looking for a blank space. "Well, Number One. Since Number Five refuses to attempt teleportation with anyone except Number Seven, you may join Number Three and Four for now. Oversee the rotation of sparring partners while I monitor Number Five's progress."

"Yes, Father." Luther said, casting a worried glance at Five before walking over to the others. He went over to Klaus, encouraging him to stop and catch his breath for a moment instead of trying to keep up with Allison.

"Number Five, try a spatial jump of ten feet."

Five looked up at Reginald unimpressed. "I jumped further with Seven than that last week."

"Be that as it may," Reginald replied, not even looking up from his notes to acknowledge Five's scowl, "today we will start with ten feet. If you manage that we will then increase the distance incrementally."

Vanya laid a hand on Five's arm, drawing his attention to her before he could think to retort.

"You ready?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, the irritation still clear in his eyes.

She nodded in return. While she wasn't thrilled that she would undergo another jump with Five, at least he had given her advanced notice this time.

He held out his hand and Vanya took it, sidling closer to his side. Once he had a firm grasp on her he jumped.

Again it felt like her surrounding atmosphere had just had the air sucked out of it by a vacuum, her body feeling incredibly light as they squeezed through space together – it felt like her brain wasn't getting enough oxygen. Five smushed against her until they finally broke apart, landing exactly ten feet from Reginald.

Five seemed unbothered by the journey while Vanya wobbled on the spot, feeling like she had been on a boat for nine hours and emerged with land sickness. He kept a hold of her hand while she regained her equilibrium, not pushing her to speak.

Reginald focused on Five as he began his questions, only turning to her after a few minutes to ask for a description of how she felt after jumping.

"A little dizzy." Vanya muttered, glad Five was willing to relax his strict rules on personal space to help keep her upright.

Reginald mumbled unhappily. Of course he would consider the dizziness to be her fault, rather than a symptom anyone would experience after spatial jumping. "We will increase the distance. Twenty feet."

"Thirty." Five countered.

"Twenty feet, Number Five."

Sighing, Five dropped her hand in favour of looping an arm around her waist to better help her stand. Neither one doubted that her symptoms would only get worse the more they jumped.

Staggering as they landed again, Vanya felt her stomach roll but clamped down on the nausea before she could be sick. While Reginald made notes, Five rubbed her back and Allison walked over to offer her some water.

Taking a tentative sip, Vanya returned Three's bottle with a shy smile which Allison readily returned. But she had to cut the moment short to lay a hand over Five's, stopping the circling motion: "Sorry, but it's just making me feel sicker."

"Take deep breaths." He instructed, keeping their conversation quiet although Vanya doubted Reginald cared enough to listen closely. "I used to get this all the time when I first jumped, it'll help with the dizziness. And ginger helps with the sickness – I told Mom to get some ready for after training."

"You knew we were doing this?"

"Yeah, I insisted."

Vanya's eyes snapped to him with the admission, but Reginald interrupted them before she could say anything else.

"Forty feet."

Five couldn't resist saying: "Not thirty?"

"You wanted to go further." Reginald deadpanned, thoroughly unamused.

"Forty feet." Five replied with a pointed grin, pulling Vanya closer then jumping to the next marked point.

She slapped a hand over her mouth as they landed.

"Breathe through your nose."

Nodding, Vanya tried to follow his advice.

"Sixty." Reginald said without pause. Vanya wanted to make his head explode to give him a semblance of how she felt with every jump.

"Two-hundred." Five replied and the next thing Vanya knew they were in the downstairs toilet where the toilet seat had helpfully been left up.

"Sorry," he said as he held back her hair, "I know the further we go the longer the feeling lasts but, even if we only travelled another twenty feet, I knew you would be sick so I figured it was better to jump here."

"Why are we jumping at all?" Vanya coughed, her mouth now dry and rancid. She flushed the toilet, eager to remove the lingering smell of vomit.

"I always said I would jump with you. And even if I jumped with fifty other people before you the jump-sickness would still affect you. It's just something you have to get used to."

"How much time?" She groaned, pushing herself up from the floor. Heading for the sink she washed her mouth out under the faucet.

"Days? A few weeks? Months? Maybe never." Five shrugged, also standing up. "I'm the only one who has ever done this before and I'm exerting energy during each jump, which you're not – you can't use me as a benchmark. Only time will tell."

"We'll be jumping for months?"

"Yes."

Vanya sighed in resignation. "Why? It's not like when we were kids – we both know we can't run away like we planned to. You said it yourself, it'll tip off the Commission. We have to stay here. As depressing as that sounds."

"We stay here until," Five stressed, "they realise this is where we are. When that day comes – and it will – we need to be ready to get the hell out of here."

"What makes you think they will figure it out?" Vanya asked suspiciously.

"Well I think me not appearing in the apocalypse this year will be a big tip off."

"I hadn't thought of that." She said blankly. How had she not thought of that? Five disappearing and Ben dying. Those were, unfortunately, the milestones of her childhood.

"And that's why I'm the smart one."

Vanya ignored the barb. "What are we going to do?"

"Practice joint spatial jumping." Five intoned, as if he were stating the obvious.

"Well what about everybody else?"

"What about everyone else?" He asked impatiently.

She frowned at him. "Well we'll all need to escape, are you going to practice jumping with all of us?"

"The rest of them can just deal with it. Or hot-wire a car." Five shrugged.

She crooked an eyebrow at him, still waiting for the real reason they were doing this. If they were in a life-or-death situation Five would not hold back out of concern she'd feel a little sick afterwards.

They stared at each other until Five groaned. "Fine. I know you always wanted to take part in training so I thought this would make you happy."

Vanya felt her lips tug upwards into a bemused smile. "You thought making me puke would make me happy?"

He paused before saying: "Well sure, when you put it like that it sounds stupid."

She laughed and was pleased to see he smiled in return.

"And we will jump further. Although a beach could be a bit too far. I might be able to find a lake though."

"You remember that?" Vanya asked, her face feeling warm. She remembered sitting with Five, talking about the places they wanted to go. He would make suggestions and Seven would readily agree – as long as it was away from the Academy and Five was with her, she wasn't all that fussy.

"Yeah – you wanted somewhere with a lake, and mountains," he said, ticking the criteria off on his fingers, "trees, an open space, and it had to be quiet. I know you wanted to practise your violin there but I think soon we will have to find a better space for you to use your powers. And somewhere far away from other people strikes me as a good idea – for now, anyway."

Vanya nodded in agreement. "I know I do. Although I think I've gotten better at moving objects on purpose."

"Telekinesis." Five supplied, explaining: "The power to move things with your mind is called telekinesis. Show me."

Glancing around the small toilet, Vanya spotted some folded towels on the shelf. Now she needed to pick a sound to use – something soft. The louder and faster a sound she used the more destructive her powers became. Focusing, she expanded her range of hearing to the surrounding rooms.

Five stared at her, surprised that she had closed her eyes. "What are you trying to move?"

"I'm not trying to move anything yet, I'm still choosing a sound."

He resisted the urge to scrutinize that statement, not wanting to sound too similar to their Father by launching into a series of dissecting questions, only offering a suggestion. "Could you use my voice?"

"No, it's not a constant noise." She explained. "I think I'll use the sound of the traffic outside."

"You can hear the traffic outside?" Five asked curiously.

"Shh." Vanya replied impatiently, tuning everything out except her chosen sound. When the noise filled her ears, she reopened her eyes and turned her attention to the towels. Focusing intently, trying to use her powers with her mind rather than her heart, she pulled at them with her will and the small pile slid off the shelf and into the air.

She allowed it to hover for a moment before replacing them.

It frustrated her that such a small act made her feel tired afterwards. She hadn't felt remotely that way when she'd brought down the Academy the other month, if anything the destructive act had energised her. But then it hadn't been Vanya in control of that; the White Violin had completely taken over by that point.

She liked to think it. Whether she was always convinced was another matter.

"That's good, Vanya." Five said. "So how far can you hear exactly?"

Above them a pilot was asking his co-pilot what his plans were for the weekend. He was throwing a barbeque for his daughter's birthday and he invited the pilot to come along if she wasn't busy.

How high did planes fly? Five or six miles?

"Far." Vanya replied unsurely and warily. "I'm not sure what my distance limit is though."

"Doesn't that get overwhelming?"

Her sharp upwards exhalation blew the bangs away from her forehead. "Sometimes. Most of the times I can just select what I want to hear. It's like I'm aware I can hear things that are far away, but I don't hear them properly unless I focus on it. And then I can use the sounds to different effects."

"The others were right – we need to get Dad's notebook."

"The others said that?" Vanya worried. Why did they want the notebook? Were they looking for a way to overpower her?

"Ven, it's fine." Five said, laying a hand on her arm. "We thought it would help you understand and develop your powers."

"They know my powers are back?"

"Vanya, chill." Five instructed, taking a pointedly deep breath – encouraging her to emulate him. "They don't know anything. Literally. I don't think they know anything. Their stupidity is alarming sometimes."

She breathed as instructed, glancing at the still closed bathroom door. Five followed her gaze.

"He's probably looking for us." He said, voicing aloud their shared thought.

"We should go then."

Five still kept a hold of her. "We're talking again later. We need to talk more."

"Is talking part of 'Plan: Fix Vanya' or are you starved of adult conversation." Vanya scoffed.

"You can laugh, but I swear mentally they never aged past thirteen."

She stood still for another minute, always reluctant to return to Reginald's presence.

"Okay. Let's go."

Five opened the door for her and they walked back to the training room, expecting a lecture which Reginald didn't fail to provide.

"I said fifty feet."

"I knew Seven would be sick, so I aimed for a bathroom. It's a good job I did too, or you might have ended up with vomit on your shoes." Five said unapologetically.

"Seven, are you all right?" Allison asked, overhearing Five's words. She immediately stopped sparring with Ben, who in turn quickly dropped his own arms.

"Return to your assigned task, Number Three."

"Yes, Father." She said, while still shooting Vanya a concerned look.

"Number Seven, you are no longer required here. Return to your lessons."

"Yes, Father." Vanya replied dutifully, taking her leave.

Grace was hovering by the door to the training room, some ginger biscuits on a small plate which she offered once she saw Number Seven. Taking a cautious bite, she was happy that they settled well on her still turbulent stomach.

Vanya returned upstairs as she still had math exercises to complete from yesterday's lessons with Grace. Having journeyed back in time, she had expected lessons to be a breeze, however it turned out that a lot of the material covered in their classroom lessons had little to no application in adulthood, and Vanya had subsequently forgotten most of it – particularly the topics covered in their science and math classes. At least Five still knew everything, although he was having a hard time watering down his advanced knowledge to resemble that he possessed at thirteen. Apparently he had spent a lot of his time in her post-apocalyptic wasteland studying and complained that Grace's idea of 'advanced calculus' was infantile.

Still, he would always help if she got stuck with a problem. He even tried to bite down on his more scathing remarks as he did. Although, if she asked him to help with her homework for too long, he would eventually crack and make some kind of cutting comment about her intelligence. She never took them seriously – then again she never had. It was just a part of Five's personality and, as she was well aware he was an actual genius, Vanya could understand how frustrating the lack of intellectual stimuli could be. She imagined it was similar to how she had felt guiding her young students through painful renditions of Jack and Jill or Itsy Bitsy Spider. One could only be patient for so long before the cracks showed.

Finally the Umbrella Academy returned upstairs from training to freshen up for lunch.

It must have been Ben's turn on the babysitting rota, as he poked his head around her bedroom door not long afterwards.

"Hey, Ven. You busy?"

"Just working on some trig problems." She replied, not looking up from her book.

Ignoring her lack of engagement he entered the room.

"Do you want help, I finished mine yesterday?" Ben offered up hopefully.

"Err, all right. I guess." Vanya said, shuffling uneasily in her seat.

Ben came and sat on the empty part of her desk, which Vanya kept clear for those times Five sat there when he was making notes and decided he needed a change of perspective. He would often progress from sitting somewhere normal, like the bed or her chair, to some place strange, like the desk or the top of her wardrobe. One of these days she expected to find him hanging upside down from the ceiling like a bat, hoping the directional change in blood flow would help to jumpstart his brain.

He looked down at her worksheet and talked her through the equations she was stuck on. Within ten minutes he had helped her finish most of the remaining problems and Vanya had even forgotten that she had felt uncomfortable until Ben's hand brushed hers as he reached for the eraser.

Vanya dropped her pencil.

"You okay?"

"You know, it's getting close to lunch. I'll just finish this later. I want to clean up."

"Are you sure, you're almost done?" Ben said, startled as she jumped up from her chair.

Humming lightly in response, Vanya waited until he cautiously left the room. Gently shutting the door behind him she let her legs falter beneath her and slid down to the floor. Her hands clenched tightly, trying to stop herself from reliving the feel of Ben's living hand on hers.

Pressing her lips together she repressed a cry and breathed until she felt somewhat stable.

Feeling everything so strongly was exhausting at times, and it only worsened the longer the gaps got between her doses of 'medicine'.

When Ben had died she had verged on catatonia for months, and that was when she was on her pills.

Ben's death had been a real punch in the gut. When Five disappeared it felt like her world had been turned upside down, and only Ben seemed to appreciate how deeply Vanya missed him – how lost she felt without her best friend around anymore, almost as if she had lost an extension of herself. The rest of them never understood that. She wasn't a part of the team, wasn't a part of the bond that could only be found amongst brothers in arms, so why should she miss him? They had the same attitude when Ben died – except Klaus, but by then he was battling his own demons and neither one of them had been able to help the other.

Now he was here again, back with her for the first time in over ten years – barring a hazy memory of him at the concert. Something she still didn't understand.

With his reappearance a lot of suppressed emotions now had to be addressed, the best of which was barely contained delight. The worst brought her to her knees and made her feel like she would never get up again.

It might ease if she could finally talk to Ben about his death. It was something she imagined he was still trying to process himself. But she couldn't, not yet. Ben was her closest sibling after Five, which meant she knew him all too well. If she revealed her knowledge of the future, he would scarcely make it until the end of the day before telling Klaus who, while well meaning enough, was the biggest blabbermouth in the entire family. Within an hour there would be a family meeting and they'd all question her; needling at her and asking her to make decisions which she couldn't face.

Not today anyway. It would have to be soon though, Five had made that clear enough.

Vanya had decided she wanted to be able to show some semblance of control before shedding the amnesia story, to prove that they could trust again her off her pills.

She'd done it the right way this time; she still took the occasional half a pill and had been carefully monitoring her intake to properly wean herself off them, instead of going cold turkey like Leonard had forced her to.

Five had told her of his siblings' plans to jog her memory and, knowing them, their patience for this plan to be enacted wouldn't last forever. Sooner or later one of them would take it upon themselves to tell her, thinking Five wasn't up to the task, and ruin her much needed peace.

The underlying hilarity of the situation didn't escape her. How long had she craved attention from her extraordinary siblings? Now she had an unlimited supply and was scorning them.

Running a brush through her hair, Vanya straightened her jacket and pulled her socks up before hurrying downstairs.

"Hi V-Ven." Allison said, catching herself as she tried to use her adult name rather than her number. They were lucky her old nickname started with the same letter. As the only sibling to have a two-vowel name, she had been the only one to have a nickname derived from the number. Of course everyone else eventually got cool, well thought out codenames; the Kraken, the Rumour, Space-boy. Vanya got Ven, and then V. Although she always thought V better suited Five; it was his roman numeral after all.

"Hi Three." Vanya mumbled in response, bending her head down to hide her eyes behind her bangs. She didn't hide enough to miss Five's unimpressed stare; he kept telling her she was overacting.

"Hey, Seven. I could hear you practising this morning – you're great at the piano. Surprisingly good really. Given you've only had it for a week." Klaus said thoughtfully.

"What do you expect, she's a musical genius?" Ben retorted.

Her cheeks turned pink no matter how much she willed them not to, unused to altruistic praise. Usually they only complimented her when they wanted something. Well technically they did now – they wanted her to not end the world.

"Well I already know how to read music, that helps." She deflected.

"So what lecture do you think it will be this time?" Diego asked the room, fidgeting with his tie.

"As long as it's not another botany lecture, I don't care." Allison said. "I nearly fell asleep in my oatmeal this morning."

"Why did we even have to listen to that?" Klaus groaned.

"In case we're ever stuck somewhere and have to forage for food." Five replied, silencing the room.

Reginald entered, heading for the gramophone to put on another record. It was about finding water. He was obviously in a survivalist mood today.

They all took their seats and started their midday meal. One of the limited advantages of repeating their childhood was Grace's cooking. Vanya had forgotten what it was like to get three square meals a day. Sometimes she forgot to eat and cooking proper food felt like a waste when she was the only one there to eat it.

Today, Grace had made soup and sandwiches. Each sandwich was different depending on the child – although she had the sense not to give Five peanut butter and marshmallows under Reginald's nose. He was having to settle for chicken and bacon.

After lunch they had an hour of shared English lessons before they separated again; the six returning to training while Vanya switched to the music portion of her lessons, sometimes led by Grace and other times left to her own discretion. She now conducted this mainly in her makeshift music room upstairs, where her violins had joined the baby grand piano. Vanya was already optimistically coming up with ideas for future instruments which could join her collection. She quite liked the idea of trying the drums, however she thought with Reginald she was more likely to be given something traditional like a clarinet or saxophone and made that her next goal.

Although her confidence in her musical talents had grown greatly since she had started weaning herself off the pills, Vanya was considering a different career in the future. Still within the field of music, but perhaps as a composer or conductor this time. Which would require her to know how to play multiple instruments.

She'd already progressed from classic nursery rhymes and standards to the more simple classical pieces on the piano. Today it was a simplified version of Beethoven's Für Elise. Once she could advance onto more technical pieces, she hoped she could convince Reginald to give her another challenge. After all, she had plenty of time during the day to occupy.

Or perhaps she could try to learn another language. She'd been the only sibling to study a foreign language in childhood. Grace provided her with French lessons as part of her individual curriculum, designed to keep her busy while everyone else learned other (and, at the time she considered, more interesting) skills.

Either way she needed more stimulation. She refused to spend another childhood with nothing to do except stare at the walls once she finished her lessons, while her siblings were busy or out on missions, and her hands too raw to continue playing.

She spent an hour on the piano before switching back to the violin, having dug out the score for Boccherini's String Quintet.

After another hour it was time for her self-scheduled power practice so she returned to her bedroom, the door shut firmly behind her. Five had helped Vanya figure out where the camera was in her room and on some days she positioned her music stand to block its view, however she couldn't do that too often without rousing suspicion. So she focused on testing her hearing range today. She was curious how far she could go. Ideally she needed one person to centre in on, and send them to increasing distances to test her limits, however for now she could only lay with her eyes shut and try to project.

She took settled down on her bed, linking her hands over her stomach.

A pair of raised snapping voices soon caught her attention. A couple was arguing over what flavour ice cream to buy.

Her first thought was that the conversation was taking place on the street outside the Academy building and she was amused by the length of their argument – couldn't they buy both – but after honing in on the sounds surrounding the pair, she realised it was actually taking place at a bodega four blocks away. They were funny to listen to, and she stayed with them for a while before pulling back, allowing their voices to drop back into a background hum.

Vanya continued probing her surroundings.

Three blocks away someone was wrestling with a leaky pipe, arguing with their roommates about what to do. Water was leaking onto the carpet and it terrified them that it might drip in the downstairs unit. But if they called the landlord, he might realise they'd caused the damage after attempting chin-ups while holding onto the pipeline.

Two blocks away a lady was talking to herself as she puttered around the empty house.

One block away a dog had been left at home for too long and was whining for his owners to return. It was infuriating their neighbour who was debating calling animal control; they always left the dog alone for too long. He reasoned that it wasn't fair on the dog. Or him.

The dog's whining was too high pitched and Vanya pulled away from it, recognising it as one of the sounds she utilised during her more destructive activities.

It was all so overwhelming and comforting. The sheer amount of noise sometimes felt like too much, yet it reassured the White Violin that she could hear everything around her and know what everyone was up to. The sounds were also her readily available weaponry, floating around ready to be exercised in whatever manner she chose.

The seeming limitlessness to her powers was terrifying. And thrilling.

Mostly terrifying. But also quite thrilling.

Currently she was working the hardest to perfect her telekinesis and hearing, however Vanya was aware there was far more she could do. She could project sound waves, influence people with her music, manipulate the weather, project bursts of white energy and trap people in streams capable of sucking the life from their bodies. For all she knew there was even more she could do, but she wasn't willing to explore that until she felt like she had the powers she knew about under some level of control.

The weather was what she wanted to work on next. When she got frustrated, she knew she could make it rain, but she wasn't sure how yet. And in the forest with Leonard she had used the sound of a far-off river to whip up the surrounding winds, almost taking the trees down with her.

Scrunching her nose she tried not to dwell on the details of that memory. She didn't like to think of anything involving him. But she was curious what other weather phenomena she could conjure. Snow? Ice? Sunshine? Lightening? Lightening could be fun. Klaus had been a big X-Men fan growing up and, when he let Vanya borrow his comics, she had grown to like Storm.

But that was for another day.

Allowing the noises outside to fade into her periphery, she focused on the sounds coming from within the building hoping to find some solace in her family's presence – as much as the White Violin despised labelling them as such. The patter of their feet and hushed whispers of conversation always helped to reassure her they were here and not laying dead under the rubble.

Her siblings must have finished training, or Reginald had dismissed most them, as she could hear them across several rooms instead of their voices being confined to one.

In his room down the corridor Luther was attempting, but failing, to comfort Allison about Claire. Her loss was still something Allison struggled with every day. She clearly wanted to fix her past mistakes, but she also knew without committing those mistakes Claire would never exist. Luther understood. Except he couldn't. Vanya guessed none of them ever would.

Klaus was still suffering through withdrawal. Even though his body didn't know it needed drugs, his mind did, and he was warring with himself. She could hear him pulling strands of hair between his fingers, roughly enough that a few were ripped out.

Ben was experiencing a growth spurt and was ecstatic about it, trying to distract Klaus' painfully obvious suffering with exclamations of how tall he was now. He tried to include Klaus in the moment by asking him to measure his new height. It wasn't working but Vanya knew Klaus would appreciate Ben's efforts all the same.

Diego was still with Reginald. He was practising holding his breath in a bath in one of the guestrooms while Pogo timed him. Grace was hovering nearby in case any first aid needed administering.

Five was – Five was standing in her bedroom doorway. Her eyes shot open, surprised he had been able to sneak up on her while she was allowing her senses such free rein.

Naturally if he had teleported there would have been fewer stimuli to warn her but, even as he stood motionless, now that she was focused on him she could hear his heartbeat, the tick of the watch on his wrist and the flowing of blood around his veins. He was still worked up from training, the blood was moving too fast around his body. Maybe she was getting too comfortable around him, her body not even considering him a threat to monitor.

Once he saw he had her attention he entered the room, reclosing the door to discourage anyone from disturbing them.

"How was training?" She asked, raising herself up on her elbows.

Five rolled his eyes. "Easy. How was yours?"

"Fine. I think my playing is getting good. It still needs a lot of work though."

"Not the piano," Five scoffed, "your powers."

Vanya shushed him.

"Oh relax, they don't have super hearing – you're fine. So?"

"I'm at around four blocks." She answered, laying back down.

"Do you think you can go further?"

"Yes."

"A lot further?"

She thought about that before answering. "Yes – if I had something specific to focus on. But I'm not sure how far. Not without a proper test."

Five nodded, picking up her desk chair and bringing it to her bedside. He sat down and put his feet up on her bed. "Do you think you can use your other powers on people if they're far away?"

Vanya didn't have to push herself hard to find Pogo again. He was standing above the bathtub telling Diego that he needed to stay underwater for another minute to beat his old record. She could hear his calm heartbeat, melodically beating away under his ribs. Unperturbed by what he was doing to them. From here she could stop it; she knew she could stop it.

"Yes."

"How far?"

"I still don't know, Five." Vanya sighed, turning onto her side so she could both look at him and stop his shoes from digging into her ribs. "It's not exactly something I'm racing to practise."

Five thought quietly for a moment and Vanya thought that was it, expecting him to pull out his notebook and continue scribbling ideas down about whatever it was he was working on now. That's what he usually did in their quiet moments together.

After a few moments he said: "I'm not like Dad. I won't make you do anything you don't want to. He did that to all of us. Forcing Ben to kill. Making Klaus communicate with the dead even though he knew they terrified him. He made Allison rumour you, he's forcing Diego underwater. I won't let that happen to you – not again." Five said confidently. "But I don't want you to fear your powers. You should know what you're capable of. You'll be less scared of them if you do."

It was Vanya's turn to lapse into silence, turning his words over in her head.

He was touching on a battle she fought every day with herself. The urge to unleash every iota of power within her, followed by a frantic hand snatching at her pill bottle.

"I want to take them one power at a time." Vanya said. "It feels more manageable like that. And I think it helps – being more logical in the approach. My powers are too connected to my emotions, and when my emotions spiral out of control so do they." She laughed humourlessly. "I wish I was more like you."

"Logical?" He asked, unimpressed.

"A pragmatist." Vanya countered. "I think everything would be so much easier. And everyone would be safer, if I could just be more practical."

"I'm not that much of a pragmatist." Five sighed, pausing as a look of unexpected disgust flickered across his face. "If I was..."

"What?" She pushed when he lapsed into another round of silence.

"If I was," he forced out through a tautening jaw, "I would have left your consciousness in the apocalypse and killed you as soon as we travelled back. When you were powerless – when you were Number Seven. My best friend, who never stood up for herself no matter how much I tried to get her to. Number Seven who I could have approached with a knife in my hand and still would have opened the door for me. Seven would never even try to stop me if I explained that it was the only solution. Not that she could stop me." He frowned.

"It always infuriated me, you know. That Dad never trained you. Not because I wanted you to go on missions – I never wanted you to go on missions. I didn't even want Klaus on missions, not without a power that could be used offensively or defensively. Ben always worried about him when he was there, keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't take on anyone too powerful. I didn't want that with you – it would put both of us in danger. It wasn't safe, and I never wanted to see you get hurt like the rest of us did. But as soon as we went public the Academy became a target, and I always worried when we were away that someone would attack and you would have no way to protect yourself. I tried telling the old man that all the time, that you at least needed to know how to throw a punch and fire a gun but he was always so adamant you couldn't learn that. I guess I know why now – he wanted you to be as defenceless as possible because you scared him.

"You don't know how much of a relief it was, finding your book. To know that you were all right after I left." He finished, his face still contorted into a grimace.

"Physically." She amended.

"I think it was a foregone conclusion we'd all be leaving here with mental scars. Whether or not I was here."

"It would have been easier if you were here." Vanya admitted, even though she knew that confession would hurt him. "For me anyway. We all had someone – One and Three. Four and Six. Two had Grace, and he was close to Four. I had you and then you were gone."

He grabbed her hand then, almost desperately. His skin was clammy and cold.

"I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I left without you."

She looked at him. He'd apologised before, for leaving without saying goodbye. This apology meant more.

"I'm sorry that because of me you were stuck in a desolate wasteland." She said thickly, swallowing back a rising tide of tears. Five had always hated it when she cried. He still hated it, perhaps even more now.

"I will be here – I want to be here with you."

Vanya frowned. His tone was too fraught, there was a condition behind that promise. "But?"

"I think I still need to time travel."

Numbly, she snatched her hand back. For one brief flicker of rage she felt like slapping him with it.

"Listen to me." Five said, his tone suddenly level and calm. Vanya hated it.

"Yes?" She replied waspishly.

Pushing herself up she leant against their shared wall, crossing her arms securely across her chest.

Five heaved a sigh at her defensive position but didn't call her out on it.

"If I don't go into the future, it will alert the Commission that someone has compromised our early timeline. They have to already be looking for us. If I don't turn up in the apocalypse, I might as well stick a giant neon sign over our heads saying 'here we are, right here, come and get us'."

"What can they even do?" She retorted. "If they come near us, I'll just...rip their skins from their skeletons. Or something."

She could tell her uncharacteristically violent threat amused Five, but he pressed ahead with the topic at hand.

"Look, if everything goes to plan there won't even be an apocalypse. I'll just be stuck in 2019 – and I'll have to wait until you catch me up. Sure, they'll still know something's happened to the timeline. But they'd have to examine the whole timeline to figure out where the change has occurred and that will buy us valuable time. Time for you to practice your powers, time for the others to get their shit together."

"If you leave the plan goes to hell, Five." Vanya snapped, feeling furious with them both. Unfortunately her anger had always translated into tears during her childhood years, and she could feel the moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes. Although the vindictive half of her was happy that her tears would make Five more uncomfortable.

"The only way we pull this off is together. I can't do this without you."

"The others will help you."

"No they won't." She said, catching her shrill tone and reducing it to a hissed whisper. "They can barely help themselves!"

"They'll do better this time around."

"No they won't!"

"Ven..."

"Do you have any idea how angry they make me every day?"

"It will be different..."

"I know! That's what makes me so angry." She gritted out through clenched teeth, desperately trying to keep her voice from rising into a scream. Not with everyone so close.

"Every time they try to include me in games, every time they ask my opinion, or give me a compliment. Whenever Allison offers to do my hair or Klaus asks to paint my nails – you know what I think?" She didn't wait for a response. "Seeing them act that way? It shows it could have been this way the first time around. They just didn't care enough about me to try!"

Her anger vanished then and without it she felt that hollowness she still loathed, despite it being her only true companion in life.

The tears spilt over and she crumpled into herself, trying to hide her shameful outburst from Five's weary eyes.

"Vanya?" Five breathed after a moment, watching her shoulders rise and fall with the powerful, shuddering sobs that had overtaken her. "Seven?"

He drew his legs back so he could rise from the chair, moving to sit beside her on the bed.

"It's not that simple. Our childhood was never that simple. You know that. You know what conditions we were all living through – I know you do. It was all there in your book. You were the only one to ever admit that our childhood was fucked up – the rest of them were just kidding themselves."

Brushing the hair back from her face, where it was sticking to her skin, he tried to meet her eyes but her head stayed buried in her knees.

"We were all just trying to survive."

"I know." She croaked out. "It still hurts though."

Five watched her for a minute, feeling helpless and resigned about what he had to do.

Curling an arm around her back, having to wrangle it to get between her and the wall, he linked his other arm under her bent knees and pulled her onto his lap. He tried to curl around her as much as possible, difficult given at this age they were both the same height.

Vanya instantly tried to cocoon herself into him, grateful for the security his hug gave her. With his arm around her back she finally felt the tension that remained in it all day ease away, knowing that in this moment someone was watching it for her. No one could sneak up on her here, Five wouldn't let them.

He rocked her as she still choked out her tears, which felt too hot against her cheeks. Her bangs were plastering themselves to her forehead, and she knew, when she emerged, she would make a frightful sight.

At that moment she couldn't bring herself to care.

Despite initiating the contact she could tell Five was slightly uncomfortable with the embrace, unsure where to rest his hands. He alternated between rubbing her back, brushing her hair out of her eyes and at one point awkwardly patting the top of her head. She would have to part from him soon, for the sake of his sanity.

"Thank you, Five." Vanya said, still clinging to him. Her voice was clearing although her eyes were still wet. "I promise I'll let go soon, I just need another minute."

"It's okay, Ven. I've got you." He replied, patting her shoulder this time.

Chuckling lightly, Vanya pulled away. Keeping her head tilted down, she wiped her face dry with her hands until Five offered her his handkerchief. She only ever seemed to see it when he was handing it to her after a crying fit, she thought dryly. He probably carried it solely for her crying outbursts.

"Here, I have something for you." She blurted, tilting her head back up once she felt she looked human again. Of course there was no need to feel self-conscious, Five didn't look much better for wear. His collar was damp and Vanya felt vaguely mortified that she had sniffled on someone as unflappable as Five.

Clambering off the bed, she motioned for him to stand up too.

She moved to lift the mattress before hesitating, feeling the weight of the camera on her back.

Five wordlessly moved to stand directly in front of it and, after offering him half a smile of thanks, she bent to dig out her notebook.

"Here."

Taking the black covered exercise book, Five looked at it with interest. "Is this one of mine?"

"Yeah, sorry about that. I never had any spare stationary, so I took one of yours when you were in training." Vanya apologised.

"I didn't notice." Five said curiously. "Well you can keep it, I don't mind."

He tried to offer it back, but Vanya pushed it back into his chest. "No – read it. But promise me you won't let anyone else see it."

"All right."

She could tell he wanted to read it now but dinner was fast approaching and Vanya was keenly aware that her face needed a wash and her bangs needed combing. Five would probably have to change his jacket too, she thought with a grimace. There were days she really couldn't understand why he chose her to be his best friend growing up.

"I'll see you at dinner."

"Okay – see you soon." Five said, hesitating by her door. He settled for patting her shoulder again, which Vanya patiently endured with a straight face figuring if she openly laughed at him she would never get another hug from him.

Cleaning up, she was joined on the staircase by Allison who had lightly run to catch up with her.

"Hey, are you all right? I thought I heard raised voices coming from your room earlier?" She asked with concern. Allison nearly always sounded concerned when she came to speak to Vanya. It was somehow both heartening and infuriating.

"Oh, Five got excited about some new science theory." Vanya said vaguely. "I didn't understand it but he said it was important."

Whereas before Three would have sighed about how boring Five could be, Allison simply said: "That's nice."

Catching her arm before they got to the dining room, Allison pulled Vanya away towards a little recess. "So, we were all talking sneaking out this Saturday for donuts, like we always...planned to." She caught herself again. "Dad will be away so we figured it was the perfect time to finally go. You'll come right?"

"Five already asked me." Vanya said. Well, asked wasn't the right word. Informed her was more accurate.

"And?"

"You want me to go?" She asked dubiously.

Allison had the grace to look guilty, but her voice held no trace of insincerity. "Yes, Seven. I really want you to go. Will you?"

Vanya nodded dumbly.

Allison reach out to squeeze her hand before dragging her back towards the dining room.

Five immediately caught her eye, his own brimming with questions, but it wasn't the place to talk about it.

They didn't get the chance until he snuck into her room just after lights' out, with the notebook cradled possessively to his chest. He took a seat beside her on the bed.

"How?" Was all Five could ask, his tone incredulous with an edge of admiration.

Vanya shrugged. "One beauty of being ignored is that it makes it easier to sneak around."

"You're amazing." He whispered in response.

"I was serious though – I want no one else reading that, not yet." She said seriously, watching Five flip open the notebook again even though it was too dark in her room to read.

She had learnt the hard way how valuable the information in Reginald's notebook was. While her duplicate, which she had had to sneak into Reginald's office several times in order to reproduce her own section, had yielded some interesting information which was shaping her training she knew how important it was that no one else find out about it. If even Reginald found it, the result could be disastrous.

"I promise you, no one else is getting near this. I know all the best hiding places in this house, this will be our secret."

"Thank you, Five."

"This could help us save the world, Ven." Five uttered, his teeth gleaming in the muted light coming through her curtains. His smile was genuine.

"I hope so."

Because if she didn't get her powers under control there was only one other course of action she could think of.

"Do you want me to stay tonight?" Five asked.

"No, I'm all right. I'm pretty tired."

"Okay. Well I'm going to keep reading this." He stood up. "And thank you, Vanya. For trusting me with this."

She smiled gently at him though he likely couldn't see it. In a crack of blue he was gone.

Sinking back down into her pillows, she felt her mind wandering in a direction it had been turning towards all day ever since her conversation with Five. Towards an idea she didn't want to contemplate in bed, for fear it would follow her into her dreams.

A soft knock came at the door and Ben quickly entered.

"Hey, Ven. Can I stay here tonight?"

Vanya flipped her blankets back and scooted over. "Sure."

Maybe tonight at least she would be safe, she thought. Shuddering once as Ben settled beside her, she just reassured him she was a little cold, then they both settled in for the night.

I had someone ask me for more whump in the comments of Experiment 5068. Is this whumpy enough? Let me know! :D I also wanted to expand Vanya's powers and just couldn't resist an X-Men reference as Ellen Page was in it.

So just an FYI, I signed up to do Camp NaNoWriMo next month. I'm not actually writing anything new, I'm just using it to force myself to finish editing my novel and I've set myself an 80,000 word target. (A few people have asked to read it - it's currently on Inkitt and it's called [Blank] Christmas). I'm not saying this series will get no love next month but it might be a few weeks before anything new is posted, but don't worry I'm not abandoning it. The donut scene is coming up, I also want to get Vanya practicing using her bigger powers and then the other siblings will learn her amnesia is fake - and I'm open to other suggestions, although nothing that has been seen a lot in the fandom - I don't want to duplicate anything. I think the show might actually go down the amnesia route as Vanya does lose her memory in the comics after the apocalypse is averted.