3:1

《 Headcannon that Jayme's power doesn't just show what you desire, but what you fear, too 》

"They're my children."

She could hear the frown in Five's voice when he scoffed. "Im sorry, your children? Thats not possible, old man."

Violet backed away slightly, feeling Five try and grasp her hand in passing. She stilled, if only for him, to allow him the feeling of her warm hand clasped in his cold one.

"Of course it is. I think I would know that, wouldn't i?"

Klaus shifted forwards, eyes fixed on the man standing in the front of these so called 'sparrows.' "Everyone can see Ben, right?"

Ben looked unamused. "Cute hat, Sundance."

Five shot Violet a look, but she appeared back in her catatonic state like before the time jump and couldn't pull her eyes away from the imposing group in front of them.

"They call themselves the Umbrella Academy; a group of scheming, perfidious malcontents who accosted me in the fall of nineteen sixty three when I was away on business in Dallas. Be warned, they claim to be my spawn."

"Claim?" Allison's heels clicked along the floor. She turned her gaze to Five furiously. "Five, what the hell is going on?"

Violet frowned at that tone. She didn't like it as much as she didn't like their situation. Why was it they despised Five's cockiness and bossing them around, but they seemed to always fall to him for a solution. That didn't seem fair.

He tilted his head uneasily. "I don't know yet, but it is concerning."

Violet couldn't deal with all of this. It was too much. Her skin was warm, her head hurting, her body shaking slightly.

She looked up at the sparrows, the man in the tall, dark skinned man in the centre looking like he could be their version of Number One. He was glaring at them all. To his left was a woman with blonde hair falling just below her shoulders, watching them all with widened eyes. A woman with olive skin and cropped hair, sunglasses and scarred over skin where her eyes should have been. She seemed unbothered. A man with a disfigured face was to her right, close to a shorter woman with pitch black hair and a bored expression on her face, like chewing gum would be more interesting.

Everyone's words were lost on her as they met them on the same floor, standing behind Ben who had his arms crossed.

"Mom?" Diego's emotional voice brought her out of her daze, and she snapped her head round to see this new version of what had been their mom.

She looked new, more modern, and less human. Her heels were still the same, and she carried a plate of cookies in her arms and an uncertain smile that seemed more of a malfunction than anything.

Her grip tightened on Five's hand, emotion crawling up her throat.

"She's a robot, you perve!"

Tears burned her eyes and she swallowed the lump in her throat. Too much. This was too much.

"Hey!" Luther yelled in Diego's defence. "Don't you call him that."

"Or what?" Their Ben seethed.

"Why don't you come closer and find out?"

"Luther!" Vanya put her hands out in between them. "Guys, chill!"

Ben went towards them and Diego stepped in to block his path, their voices beginning to raise one over the other.

Violet slid her hands up to cover ears, dropping Five's hand and backing up to where she accidentally knocked arms with Diego. She flinched away from him, something tickling the back of her wrist and making her shake her hand out at the gross feeling. When she looked, there was nothing there.

Klaus went to hug Ben and she cringed, knowing it would end bad.

Ben punched him, sending him crashing backwards across the table where he thudded to the floor. He laid there and groaned.

She flinched away sharply, chest aching.

She weaved through her siblings until she was away from the group and sat herself on the floor, her legs feeling suddenly weak. Her back hit the wall and she drew her legs in against her chest, covering her ears again.

Luther swung for the athletic looking man in defence of Klaus when he stood to defend what Ben had done, and the minute it got violent, Violet shut down.

She couldn't deal with this. She just couldn't. There was so much noise.

It was meant to be better, it was meant to be different. It was meant to be back to normal, back to their fucked up, crazy normal. But it wasn't. Nothing ever went their why. Why? Why couldn't they have a break from it all? Why did it have to be them who were destined to deal with the weight of the world on their shoilders? Why did it have to be Five, the one at the centre of it all?

The voices and crashing changed together like cymbals right next to her ears, scrunching her eyes closed and resting her forehead on her knees. Her right foot tapped up and down to the beat of her rapidly increasing heart rate.

Whem her ears began ringing and it felt like the ground was moving beneath her as though she was in an elevator, she had no choice but to lift her rapidly aching head. Her eyes prised open painfully and when she saw that she was no longer in the confines of the academy, or even inside at that matter, she froze.

Her eyes widened in fear, hands falling to the floor beside her only to be met with rough, jagged stone.

The sky above her was a gloomy grey, coated in clouds of ash. Everything was destroyed.

All of the buildings around her were barely standing, looking weathered and broken. There were no trees in sight, no plants, no grass, nothing. It was all just shades of grey and brown and russet red and black soot coating the floor beneath her.

It was as though the earth had been scorched.

She looked down at her hands. They were thinner than usual, too angular, too bony. Her fingernails were dirty and her clothes, although the same, were too loose fitting for her frame. None if it made sense. Her jeans were torn at the knees, her legs beneath scraped and littered with fading bruises.

Her chest heaved with shaky breaths. She tried to get up in a panic, the space around her swaying dangerously.

"I'm sorry, Vi."

She span to find the voice. The only thing familiar to her. She wanted to cling to it and never let it go.

But what she saw wasn't the same Five she had known.

He stood there in the uniform still, and they were the same age, just... worn down by their surroundings. He had a heavy shade of purple under his hollow eyes, hair across his forehead messy and slightly longer than usual.

She scanned him rapidly, meeting his eyes last; tired, regretful, ashamed.

She had never seen him look so tired.

Her hands shook as she tried to walk towards him, but he backed away to distance himself, a flash of pain shooting through his expression. She froze.

"Five?" She croaked, eyes flickering to the destroyed space around them in a panic.

How was it she had been in the so called Sparrow Academy seconds before and now she could actually feel the rough rocky surface beneath her shoes, and the ash falling gently like rain on her cheeks?

"I'm sorry, but I have to go."

Her eyes scanned his. Fear gripped her in a chokehold.

"What-" she closed her eyes. "I don't- i dont understand. What-"

Fuck, why couldn't she get the words out?!

Why was this happening? Was she hallucinating? She didn't understand what was happening.

Five gazed at her sadly, looking regretful, yet he turned and she saw a blue glow begin to appear around his clenched fists.

"Wait-" she leapt forwards to grab one of his hands, wide eyed. He looked at her, distraught. "Don't go- dont-"

He shook his head.

Her heart leapt into her throat as he prised her fingers from around his other hand, and she shook her head back at him.

"No!"

"I have to." He murmured.

What did he mean? Why was this happening?

He backed away from her and she was frozen to the spot, hot tears trailing down her cheeks. Her legs failed to work as he pulled away from her.

"Five!" She screamed as he was enveloped in a blue vortex, tearing him away from her. "Don't leave me!"

Her heart raced to the point where she thought she'd pass out. She stared at the spot he had just stood at, a sinking feeling enveloping her. She looked around herself in a slow circle, as though to check it was all real, choking on her sobs.

"Five!" She screamed again, desperation clawing at her throat.

She was alone.

She was alone.

He had left her all alone.

She covered her face with her hand, unable to control her crying, her desperation, the crushing panic and despair swallowing her whole.

But then, seconds later, she no longer felt the little flutters of ash against her bare skin and prised her eyes open, covering her mouth. She blinked to adjust them and froze once again, breath catching in her throat.

She was back in the academy, sitting where she had been before, unnoticed in the foyer and half tucked away beside the curtain bundled to the side of the window above her.

Her breaths rattled in her chest as she tried to quiet her breathing, her chest feeling tight, her eyes burning with tears that had yet to fall to her surprise.

Her brain struggled to keep up, but she heard some hushed voices off to her left through the foyer entrance.

"Whos dealing with the little girl in the corner?"

Violet swallowed down the panic, or tried to, her hands shaking tremendously. She knew that voice was Bens.

"She doesn't look up for a fight," the dark haired girl said, eyeing Violet's form with a frown, able to see something the others couldn't. "Leave her."

Ben and the disfigured man next to them turned to stare in astonishment at Jayme, who sounded so out of character that it made them do a double take.

Violet blinked hard, double checking that her surroundings weren't going to warp and change again, and her breathing began to settle to an extent.

When the group of three Sparrows looked over at the girl again, she was staring straight at them with hollow, glassy eyes and an unreadable expression on her face. They straightened. But they exchange a look, and a second later when they look back, she's gone.

"Where did she go?"

"That's creepy..." the dark haired woman muttered, shivering to herself.

They all frowned and went back to help the rest in fighting the others.