It was the last full day of their vacation. Most of them were leaving tomorrow, but Allison was leaving tonight from the nearest airport for her bi-weekly visit with Claire. Allison flew two hours every other weekend to see her daughter and work on an agreement with her soon-to-be ex-husband, Patrick, on what would happen with Claire once their divorce was final. Allison right now didn't have any custody of Claire because of what she did, using her powers on her family to make them do what she wanted, including making Patrick love her. She's been meeting with a therapist and taking some parenting classes during the week in between shootings for her upcoming movie. Allison had a full schedule all day every day, and she really loved being on vacation, but her daughter meant everything to her.

Just as Allison was packing her bag, Luther walked in the doorway of her room. He knocked on the door frame. Allison turned around to see the tall man standing in front of her. The two of them had a weird relationship. They were very close as kids, more so than any of the other siblings. Allison kind of had a crush on Luther, and so did he, but neither of them acted on it because they were supposed to be siblings. Now it was just weird between them.

"Need any help?" Luther offered.

"No, thanks. I'm okay. I can't wait to see Claire. She's gonna love the stuff I picked out for her at the mall yesterday." Allison added Claire's new clothes to one of her many suitcases.

"I'm sure she will. I'd like to meet her someday."

"I don't know if Patrick would let me, but I was thinking about bringing her home so she can meet her aunt and all of her uncles. It'd be nice, I think." Allison zipped up her bag. Luther went into the room and brought them downstairs for her. They were all heavy, but, as established at the beginning of the trip, Allison was one of the more high maintenance of the Hargreeves, save for Klaus, occasionally.

"Please don't leave me here with all these boys." Vanya joked to Allison.

"You'll be just fine. Klaus is still here. He's like an honorary third sister."

Klaus put his hands over his heart. "Aw, I'm so touched." He slung his arm around Vanya's shoulder. "We'll be just fine, Allison. Don't you worry. It'll be like a sleepover, again. We can watch movies, make popcorn, do each other's nails, it'll be great!"

"Does that mean I have to leave my nail polish behind for you?"

"That would be much appreciated." Klaus made his way over to the back door. The sun was shining again and had dried up all the rain from last night. He dragged his beach chair and umbrella out of the shed back to his spot in the sand. He saw Vanya watching from inside. He waved a bottle of sunscreen at her to reassure her that he didn't forget it. She gave him a thumbs up and turned her attention elsewhere. Klaus covered himself from head to toe in it, his face still peeling from his sun burn earlier in the week. He dug the base of the umbrella into the sand and fixed it so that it covered most of him. He summoned Ben so he wouldn't have to sit out there alone.

"What's up, bro?" Ben asked. Klaus didn't summon Ben much, because Ben was by his side most of the time already. Ben thought he'd give Klaus his alone time since the beach had been nice and quiet. Today, it was too quiet for him.

"Just want to hang out with my favorite brother." Klaus gave Ben a shit-eating grin, referencing their argument from yesterday. His mood quickly shifted. "It's too quiet out here today. I mean, usually I need some quiet time to myself, but I've had enough for this week, I think."

Ben cut Klaus off, "But isn't it really loud at home now that you're sober? I thought you'd like the quiet out here."

"I did, but something feels wrong about it. Like something's missing. I don't know what that's about. Anyway, where have you been all week? You haven't been bothering me as much as you usually do."

"I wanted to give you some alone time. You looked like you needed it. And... I'm working on something for you. It's a surprise."

"You have to tell me or I'm going to explode." Klaus threatened.

"I think it'll be worth the wait." Ben sat down in the sand next to his brother. "Don't stay out here too long. You'll get heat stroke."

"I can take care of myself, Benny, but thank you for worrying." Klaus made Ben corporeal enough so he could pat him on the head. Ben would never get used to being touched. He'd gone almost thirteen years, stuck as a ghost, unable to talk to anyone except Klaus the whole time. Now Klaus can materialize him and make him corporeal long enough to say hi to his siblings, he couldn't ask for more. Except, maybe, coming back to life, but that was probably a long shot anyway. He'd take what he could get.

Back inside, Diego was playing with his new knives. He sharpened the blades because they never make them sharp enough, he said. He took them outside to target practice at a tree. He threw the first knife, sticking it exactly where he wanted it to go. He didn't have to curve it with his powers so much. It was nice and balanced. He threw the rest of them, some of them sharper and more balanced than others. He made note of which ones needed to be sharpened again or balanced, and he would fix them with his tools when they all got back to the mansion.

Diego didn't like to call it "going home" anymore. It only felt like a home because Grace was always there to greet him, and now she wasn't. He decided to turn her off, not telling the others that it was him who did it. They all assumed that it was Hazel and Cha Cha when they stormed the mansion in search of Five. Her hardware was deteriorating rapidly. She was misremembering events, forgetting whole days, even sewing through her arm as she finished her cross stitch. Pogo made mention of fixing her and updating her software so that she was fully functional again. Diego was torn. He, of course, loved his mother, even though she was technically just their nanny. She felt like she was his real mom, and she treated him like he was her own son. They had a special bond when he was a kid that he never felt with any other adults. On the other hand, he thought maybe it was time to let her go. He didn't need his mommy to take care of him anymore. And now that most everyone was out of the house, she had no one to take care of, which she was programmed to do. What would she do with herself all alone in that big, empty house? What did she do when they all left when they were teenagers? Maybe she went a little nuts and that's why she started to break down.

He also missed Patch. It was worse finding her body than being notified about her death. He never wanted to see her like that. Diego also know that it was his own fault that she got shot. It was him who told her that she should come out in the streets to take down bad guys with him. It was him who didn't show up when she called. And it was him who should've been in her place. He wished that he could've traded places with her. Or at least that his boss, Al, would have given him the message in time for him to meet her before she approached Hazel and Cha Cha's motel room. He could've curved the bullet away from Patch, redirected it at Cha Cha, and all of this would have been over. Hazel could go off with Agnes and do what he liked, and Patch would still be here. That's what he thought, anyway.

"You okay?" Diego heard a small voice from behind him. He drew back him arm, ready to spring on whoever it was behind him. Noticing it was just Vanya, he put it back down at his side. "Don't worry, I'm not going to attack you."

"Sorry, force of habit." He looked her up and down. "What are you doing out here?"

"Checking up on you. You seem distant today." She scanned his face, trying to figure out what exactly it is that he was feeling. Nothing, that she could tell. Diego was stone cold, at least from the outside.

"I've just...been thinking about some th-things." He cursed under his breath. He didn't like stuttering or feeling vulnerable in front of the others. He liked to keep up his facade, trying to seem the strongest sibling, like the Number One he never would be.

"Is it-is it about her?" Vanya knew a little bit about Patch, just from what Klaus told her. Diego hadn't told Klaus much about Patch either, so Vanya didn't have much to go on. Five did tell her that Diego liked Patch because she believed in people, only after making superficial comments. Vanya wasn't sure how to go about Diego's feelings. She didn't know he had any until recently, to be honest. After she wrote that book about all of them, Diego seemed to take it the hardest. Maybe he didn't realize how he treated or talked to her when they were younger. He was aggressive and abrasive and treated her like an Other in the house. She wanted to understand where he was coming from, as her therapist told her it would be good to repair their relationship now that the apocalypse wasn't coming.

Diego was hesitant to answer Vanya. He retrospectively knew how he treated Vanya when they were younger. He didn't realize how it made her feel when he told her that she wasn't special enough to go on missions with them. The others told her that too, it was just his tone that made it sound unnecessarily mean. "That, and mom." Diego took all of his knives out of the tree bark, turning to go back inside.

"You know, if you need to talk to someone, I'm here. And if you don't want that, I can give you my therapist's number. She's easy to talk to." Vanya offered.

"Thanks, but I..." He hesitated, thinking. He took a breath so his tone didn't come out how it usually did. His voice softened. "Maybe later." She nodded, following him back into the house and going her own way.

Upstairs, Five was working on equations in his notebook. Vanya bought him an actual lined notebook so he wouldn't have to write in the margins of her book anymore. He also wasn't allowed to write on the cabin walls. They didn't own it. Five was trying to figure out a way to get his adult body back, or ahead maybe, to the age he should be. He thought that it would be difficult to figure out a way to get time to travel through his body forward, just like it went backward when he got this way. Same, but opposite. He also wanted to make sure that he himself wouldn't travel ahead through time and get stuck again. He sort of knew how to do it, but the equations helped him pinpoint the timings better so that maybe he wouldn't totally screw it up. As much as looking like a thirteen-year-old boy could have some advantages, it mostly came with its disadvantages.

Five also wondered if it would be a good idea to go back to the day he traveled sixteen years into the future and stop himself from doing it. How much would it change the timeline? Surely, he would grow up with the rest of his siblings just like he was supposed to. He could figure out how to control his powers better, including time travel, and perfect it. Could he save Ben from dying? Would Five help Vanya by telling her about her powers and help her to control them before they got out of hand? Or would the Handler find a way to make it go on as planned? So many variables, so much that could go wrong.

He liked how things were going now. He began to put the apocalypse past him. Sometimes he still had PTSD-type flashbacks, but they were getting better. He enjoyed spending time with his siblings and repairing some relationships, sparingly, of course. He was still used to his alone time. He was still working on it. He was learning things about his siblings that he missed out on during his time away. He learned quite a bit about them from Vanya's book. Five liked to surprise them with this secret knowledge. They didn't think he knew much about their adult lives. He knew how Reginald "saved" Luther and made him what he is now; he knew that Diego got kicked out of the police academy, and that that's why he turned vigilante; he knew that Allison had a family and flourishing acting career, although most people would know that because she was on the cover of every magazine; he knew that Klaus started using right after falling down the stairs, breaking his jaw, and getting addicted to the painkillers he was prescribed; he knew Ben died on a mission when he was seventeen and that Luther still blamed himself for it; and he knew that Vanya left the house as soon as she could afford to and joined the orchestra because it was the one thing in her life that made her feel anything but ordinary.

He took a break from his equations, bookmarking his spot in his notebook for later. The boy went downstairs to find all of his siblings in the kitchen making sandwiches for lunch. "You guys eating without me?" He said, sounding fake hurt.

"We thought you'd still want your alone time. I made one for you." Vanya said, handing Five his own plate. Peanut butter and marshmallows. She remembered. He sat down at the dining room table next to Klaus and what he assumed was Ben's seat on the other side of him.

"Your face is looking a little pink." Five said, gesturing to Klaus's nose.

"Come on! I put sunscreen on, I was under an umbrella, and I wasn't even out there that long! Maybe the sun just doesn't like me." Klaus sank down in his chair defeated.

"That makes two of us." Ben said under his breath, though Klaus still heard him. Klaus materialized him, his hands and Ben's body glowing blue.

"Wanna say that again, Ben?" Klaus challenged.

Everyone looked in Ben's direction. They still were in awe every time Klaus made him appear before them. They said their hellos. Ben sheepishly explained his joke, making some of them laugh. Klaus let go and Ben was gone once again. It was good for Klaus to practice. He was getting stronger, so maybe one day he could keep Ben here for more than five minutes, and maybe he could find Dave. It was a long shot, but he was still hopeful.

Later that evening, Luther drove Allison to the nearest airport. He played his CDs to pass the time and avoid any awkward silence. When he came back, everyone was sitting at the beach, watching the sunset. Diego and Vanya were sitting just in front of where the water met the sand, talking about something he couldn't hear. That was odd for them. Five was sitting on Klaus's beach chair, writing vehemently in his notebook, stopping to think every so often. Klaus was jumping through the waves, laughing as the larger ones knocked him almost off his feet. Luther didn't know, but Ben wasn't there. He was off, wherever he was, working on Klaus's surprise. Klaus figured out that Ben was looking for something, but he still didn't know what for.

Luther took off his large overcoat, not wanting it to get wet, leaving it hanging on the deck railing. He joined his siblings on the beach, standing with his feet in the water and watching Klaus, making sure he wouldn't get hurt or potentially drown. When it was getting too dark, he went back into the house to get Klaus a towel, still the big brother he always tried to be. The wind was picking up cold air from the water and bringing it ashore. Klaus shivered in his towel, but still smiling.

They played some more board games, which eventually descended into chaos because Allison wasn't there to keep everyone calm and keep the games fair. Vanya tried to assume the position, even though Luther and Diego tended to argue over her anyway, but she still tried her best. Klaus acknowledged that she asserted herself as the new authority and didn't cheat at Monopoly this time. Because of this, he lost miserably, plunging himself into crippling debt a half hour into game play. Five won, because of course he did. Still, no one wanted to play Twister when Klaus suggested it. The game that ended up being the most fun and fair ended up being Go Fish. They played about ten rounds, each winning at least once. Klaus was always the sore winner, and Five the sore loser, saying that this game was up to chance and that there was no way he could win if there was no strategy to it.

Cleaning up around eleven that night, Five actually went to sleep, tired from a long day of working at his time travel question. He fell asleep on the couch just before they were going to quit playing, Luther having to carry him to bed.

Luther also went to sleep, only after a long time of staring at the ceiling and missing Allison. He wished he could tell her how he felt without making it weird, but he just couldn't figure out how. And anyway, she had a family. Regardless of her divorce, he'd feel weird about dating the mother of his niece.

Diego played with his knives before going to sleep, thinking about his talk with Vanya earlier on the beach. He told her about how he and Patch were a thing, and that it hurt when she broke up with him, and it hurt that he still saw her when he worked at night. He wished he could tell her he loved her one last time. He also told her about how he was the one to shut down Mom because it was "her time." Vanya was shocked at first, but she understood that it had to happen sooner or later. She just never thought it would be Diego who would do it.

Vanya went up to the room she used to share with Allison, now sharing it with Klaus. He moved all of his stuff into the room, even though they were leaving tomorrow. He kept her up a little while longer, painting her nails, gossiping about their siblings, and telling her a little about Dave. Some things about Dave he wouldn't tell anyone, like what he and Dave got up to when they were alone, wink wink. He told both Vanya and Diego what he looked like, his general personality, and some of his little quirks that Klaus just loved. None of the other soldiers picked up on them because Dave spent most of his free time with Klaus anyway. The last four months of Klaus's time in Vietnam was spent attached to Dave's hip. Whenever they went to Saigon on their week's leave, they barely left the hotel room, not wanting to be judged by any fellow soldiers they might encounter on the street. When they did go out, they went to bars and clubs, but spent most of their time holed up alone in the corner. He told Vanya now that he had been thinking about trying to find Dave's ghost so he could at least talk to him, and how Diego thought it was a bad idea because he should let Dave go. Vanya told him that if he really thought it was a good idea, to go for it. But if he thought it would make his heart hurt more, then maybe he shouldn't. He said he'd think about it and went to sleep.