He didn't find Vanya's body.

For a while, that was the only thing keeping him going. Five found Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus. Even Ben, though he didn't find his body so much as he found the remains of a gold—or what used to be gold—statue in the Academy's yard. But Vanya was nowhere to be found. Foolishly, he thought she had managed to survive; there had been no way their siblings had let her fight with them, not with how they treated her. And they did fight. They had to have, with Luther clutching that eye, with them being so close to the epicenter of the blast. But Vanya wasn't there, so she might have been alive.

That was before Five had seen the rest of the corpses. They cluttered the streets, man, woman, and child, faces twisted in grimaces of confusion and fear before rot took ahold of them and their features turned to decaying mush. Even if, miraculously, Vanya had hidden inside a bomb shelter, he pried enough of those open to know the contents would be nothing but jelly. For just a moment, he had thought he had found Vanya's body, but in a blink, he realized it was just a mannequin who happened to look like her. Still, he didn't want to go crazy, so Five packed Delores into his wagon and continued searching.

Summer turned the barren city scape into a scorched hellhole, and then winter came to chill his bones. It was his first winter when he discovered the remains of the city library, only four miles away from the epicenter of the blast, yet a lifetime across the rubble and corpses. Of all the hundreds of books within, less than half survived. Most of the math section was gone due to fallen cement, stalling his efforts to return home. Still, he searched the rest of the library for any chance of his siblings. He'd been gone so long—over ten years for them, only a few months for him. He wanted to know what they did with their lives.

He didn't expect to see 12-year-old Vanya's face gazing sadly up at him at the base of what was left of the reference desk.

Five picked it up like he was afraid it would vanish into dust if he mishandled it. The title was still legible: Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven by Vanya Hargreeves. She'd written an autobiography. His lips twitched, the first trace of a smile in months. He bet it pissed everyone off, especially Dad. Spilling the family secrets. He turns the book over to be assaulted by another picture of Vanya, this time well into her twenties. He studied it. She looked… sad. Vanya always looked sad, but it was different than before. The sadness looked older, a healed wound rather than a fresh scar.

She looked content and Five felt his stomach clench.

He didn't want to look at the picture anymore. Instead, his eyes found the blurb on the back and his eyes widened.

"Vanya Hargreeves, 3-time winner of the Newberry Metal and author of New York Times Best Seller Silent Minds, is well known for her children's books and virtuosic skills as a violinist. Less understood is the role she played as one of Reginald Hargreeves' adopted children, standing alongside - but never counted among - the famous Umbrella Academy super kids. This is her story, in her own words."

Five gaped at the book. Vanya… he never known what she wanted to do once they left the house. As much as Reginald tried to trap them inside, the moment they turned 18, his Umbrella Academy would scatter. He'd always pictured her as a violinist in an orchestra, them sharing an apartment as he tore through university. She would become the first chair violinist, while he… a professor at a university, maybe, or a physicist, it didn't really matter to him.

But she was an author? A successful one too—he didn't know what a Newberry Metal was, but even as sheltered as he was, Five knew being a New York Times Best Seller was a big deal. His mouth twisted; he never knew Vanya had a passion for writing.

He started looking for Vanya's other books. Perhaps it was foolish of him, searching out fiction when he had all the information he wanted literally in the palm of his hand, but it felt… wrong, for some reason. Her autobiography was published a few years before the world ended, meaning most of her books were written a while ago. He wanted to… start at the beginning, so to speak.

Fortunately, there was a list of Vanya's other books in the back of the autobiography. Most of them were in a series: Peter Hartwood and the Day He Left for Tomorrow, Peter Hartwood and the Intergalactic Bounty, Peter Hartwood and the Psyche Thief. There were over a dozen in that series alone. His finger traced over the name. Peter… the name Mom wanted to give him. He rejected it, of course; there was no need for Reginald to play at them being normal children and he refused to answer to it, which was probably why he was never allowed at interviews. But Vanya knew it… and she used it, for her main character. And Hartwood was clearly a stand in for Hargreeves.

Were these books… supposed to be about him?

Five raided the rest of the library, but he only found some of the books Vanya had written. Most of the children's section was gone, whipped out under the rubble, but Five was able to find her the one mentioned on the book blurb, Silent Minds. The newspaper department in this library was also shredded, so he grabbed what he could to insulate his clothes, found an intact map, and started his trudge to the next library, over 20 miles away.

To pass the time, Five started reading Silent Minds aloud to Delores. It was about a world where everyone had powers except for the main character, Maria Fowler. Five had to put the book down once he realized that, his brow creased. It was so… like her to transmute her pain like this. It was the same as when she'd practice the violin for hours after Reginald or Allison or one of the others insulted her.

But the story was more than her pain. Vanya wrote about how Maria Fowler managed to fake a power, telepathy, using deductive reasoning and the help from a hacker/technopath friend. Together, they solved minor crimes—insider trading, scams, nothing dangerous—until Maria was forced to accept a case where a child's life was at stake.

It was intriguing, and Five read the book every time he wasn't traveling or scrounging for food. He could see bits of her in the writing—the hacker friend seemed to be based on Klaus, while the villain held elements of Allison of all people. It felt like her, like he was listening to her talk. Usually he was the one talking—Vanya was the best listener when he was working through one of his theories, always listening even though she rarely understood.

He could almost picture it: sitting in their music room again, Vanya's violin limp in her hands as she told her story, Five sitting on the piano bench watching her talk for longer than he'd ever seen.

He wanted that.

On the inside of the book, the dedication said, "For my brother; I miss you every day."

Five found the rest of her novels in the next library, having held together better than the one before, and he read them over the course of the next few months. He should have been focusing on getting back, but Vanya's books kept drawing him back in. The Peter Hartwood series was directly about him and what "adventures" he could be going on in the future. Her first book—Peter Hartwood and the Day He Left for Tomorrow—had an interview in the back. Vanya said,

"Ultimately, these books are for my missing brother. All of them are. He… ran away when we were only twelve, and to this day, I still have no idea where he is or what he's doing. I was devastated, since we were really close. Then, one day when I was really sad, one of my other brothers, Klaus, made up some explanation about how he wasn't coming home because he was too busy fighting space pirates. It was such a ridiculous idea that I ended up laughing harder than I had in weeks.

"Later that night, I thought of something: what if the reason he wasn't coming home was because he thought we didn't miss him? And that's the reason behind these books: because I miss him. I want him to come home. And even if he doesn't want to, even if he can't, I want him to know how much I care about him."

And so more dedication pages went a similar way. There were messages like "I hope you come home soon" and "Everyone's waiting for you", but there were also ones for their other siblings underneath, like, "Klaus, thank you for the idea" and "Ben, I hope this is more suited to your tastes than my 'little kid books'" and even "Diego, thanks for standing up for me." She didn't reference Five by name until the books released after her autobiography; something Reginald forced her to agree to? So no one would know she was from the Academy?

The Peter Hartwood series laid unfinished. She died before she could.

A full month after discovering Vanya's novels, there was only the autobiography left.

Vanya gave a scathing summary of the Umbrella Academy…

For some reason, the world collectively decided that child soldiers were alright so long as they had superpowers and their handler was a rich old man…

Of their siblings…

Number One pretended to be a leader. I say pretended because, unfortunately, he was always so firmly under Reginald's thumb that he never developed true leadership skills…

Looking back, it was clear that Reginald wanted Number Two to develop an inferiority complex. If he always believed he was inferior to the "Golden Children," then his mind would be too preoccupied with a rivalry to rebel…

Number Three was always thirsty for attention, and willing to rumor whoever she needed in order to get it…

Number Four's decline into addiction began as young as 10. Cigarette burns on polished wood became a common sight in our house…

He left when he was 12, a short pillar of arrogance…

The Horror often affected Number Six more than he let us know. His temper is terrifying, practically transforming him into the monster in his stomach…

And of herself.

Reginald would use me as a comparison, sometimes. Like "You have it bad, true, but be grateful. At least you're not Number Seven. At least you're not ordinary."

But less than a sentence later, she would forgive them of their faults…

…Not that I can blame Luther. Reginald put the greatest amount of pressure on him than on anyone else in the house. I've always admired his ability to, if you'll excuse the pun, stay strong.

…Because to tell the truth, Diego was always the rebel of the family. Without him on Reginald's side, his precious "Golden Children" would be outnumbered. He had to put Diego down, otherwise he'd grow too strong.

…But I can't blame Allison for her behavior. You can't exactly say "no" to someone who can change your mind in an instant. I suspect that's why Reginald let her behave the way she did; it made her easy to control.

…And praising their virtues.

…Of course, I say this despite having been addicted to heavy-duty anxiety medication since I was 4. Klaus was actually the one to realize I was addicted to medicine I didn't need. Without him, I would probably be dead.

…biting to get some sort of freedom. We used to discuss leaving in our music room, with Five declaring that he'd take me to the future where Reginald is dead or the past before he was born, and we would be able to live free. It was my favorite dream.

…but you only ever saw it when he was defending me or Klaus. I believe to this day that the Horror was one of the only things our father truly feared and the Horror was the only reason the three of us left that house intact.

It was all her feelings, those he knew and those he didn't, spread out for the world to see. Her life.

That he wasn't a part of.

The moment the acknowledgements were done, Five pressed the book to his chest and swore, "I'll stop this. I'll stop the apocalypse and come home, Vanya. I promise."

Only Delores was around to hear him.