CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
when the world goes blind

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NOBODY GOT ANY SLEEP that night. How could they, when the mutilated corpse of the man who owned the house was sitting in the living room? How could they, when the knowledge that they'd all survived on sheer luck was fresh on their minds? They hadn't yet figured out who'd broken in and murdered Elliott, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that if Nadine had been there—or, God forbid, if Molly had—then it was likely she would have died alongside him. She had no faith anymore that her abilities would save her. Not when they were so useless.

Not when she was useless. Not when she was in way over her head.

She didn't know what Luther and Diego did that night, but she knew that neither of them had touched Elliott's body—or the message scrawled with his blood. She'd heard them talking, though, voices hushed and worried, and occasionally the bustle as one headed to the kitchen or the bathroom. After all, the gut-churning dinner with Reginald Hargreeves hadn't exactly left them in a stable frame of mind. Which made it worse to come home and see the body of the man who'd given them everything—a roof over their heads, a bed, the full extent of food in the fridge. It had shut them all down.

Molly hadn't seen Elliott's remains—Nadine had warned her not to go anywhere near the living room—but the description of what had happened to him had been enough for her. As soon as Nadine had finished telling her the story, she'd rushed right to the bathroom and thrown up. She could be heard retching for almost ten minutes after that, and Nadine couldn't blame her. She'd just poured her a glass of water and stroked her hair, quietly trying not to fall apart herself.

After that, the two of them had showered (as if there wasn't a dead man in the living room), brushed their teeth (as if there wasn't a dead man in the living room), and bid the others goodnight (as if there wasn't a dead man in the living room). In the wake of this tragedy, Nadine let go of her grudge towards the Hargreeves for not sticking up for her at the tiki lounge. It seemed so petty and inconsequential, now that there was a dead man in the living room.

They were both bone-tired, but it was obvious that sleep wouldn't find them tonight. They locked the door (thank God it had a lock), climbed under the covers, and just held each other, thinking about Elliott and the people who'd killed him. It didn't feel real. It felt like a horror film, where each protagonist died in a horrific way only alleviated by the hokey special effects and fake blood. Nadine had seen dead bodies before—Harold Jenkins was just one example—but never of someone she'd really spoken to. Never someone she'd had a strange sort of fondness for. It was like any minute now, she expected Elliott to knock on her door, offering coffee, or to hear him rambling conspiracies to Luther and Diego through the walls.

She didn't cry again, though she came close. Molly did, though. She sobbed for hours, and this time, it was Nadine's turn to hold her until the bedsheets were wet with her tears. "I could've been there," she kept saying. "If I hadn't been at my grandparents, I would've been there."

Nadine didn't know what to say to that except, "I know. I'm sorry."

Hours passed with them in the dark, holding onto each other desperately. Nadine fell into a strange place just between sleep and waking, wherein she swore Molly's skin started to glow like moonlight. Then Elliott's corpse blinked back into her thoughts, and the fact that his killer had managed to get into the one place she'd thought was safe, and she was fully awake again.

This went on as a cycle, until, around one in the morning, Nadine made a Sanctuary. It was a newer one, so it took her a little time to formulate, but once it had been fully filled in, it was perfect. She'd modelled it after a whimsical dream she'd had as a child, where her bed had flown her on an adventure of a lifetime. While she couldn't exactly bring herself and Molly on a cheesy, family-friendly quest, she could at least replicate one of the dream's scenes; the part where the bed was sitting on a cloud. In this Sanctuary, it was not night but day, the sky a pleasant cornflower blue. All around them spanned a mass of puffy clouds, looking so large and soft that they resembled cotton balls, or marshmallows.

She managed to keep the Sanctuary up for an hour and a half, and she and Molly had spent the entirety of that time with their hands clasped, looking over the edge.

When the time finally came to get out of bed, though, Nadine was like a phone on one-percent battery. Although she'd never been the greatest of sleepers, and was used to the exhaustion that came when a full night's rest wasn't achieved, she very rarely actually pulled complete all-nighters. So it was that she ended up getting dressed on autopilot. Then, still zombie-like, she headed into the kitchen to make herself at least two cups of coffee.

Molly, still lying in bed, mumbled that she was going to stay there a while. Nadine didn't blame her.

She brewed herself a cup of Elliott's coffee, pouring it into a mug with a toadstool painted on it. The lines were sloppy enough to look homemade—had he painted it? Had his ex-wife? Was it a relic from his childhood?

Her gut churned. She'd never get to ask him.

All around the kitchen, there were signs of Elliott's presence—a few dirty cups stacked in the sink, waiting to be cleaned; a conspiracy book with a bookmark right near the middle; a few crossed-out notes scribbled on stray pieces of paper. It was hard to look at them, so she decided, spontaneously, to clean it all up. She stacked all of the cups into the dishwasher and turned it on. She slid the conspiracy book back onto his bookshelf. Because she couldn't bear to throw the notes away, she stacked them together, fastened them with a paper clip, and set them on his desk. Then, because she was in the groove, now, she swept the floor, wiped down the counters, and made hard-boiled eggs (this was the one dish she could actually trust herself with, as it mostly constituted of tossing them into a pot and then waiting). When Luther and Diego entered ten minutes later, dressed in the same clothes they'd been wearing yesterday and appearing as exhausted as Nadine felt, they found a spotless kitchen, a full coffeepot, and enough eggs boiling on the stove to feed all of them.

Diego immediately went to the coffeepot, his eyes rimmed with sleep. "Thanks, Nadine," he said, getting himself the largest mug he could find.

Nadine shrugged. "It was no trouble," she said. "I didn't exactly want to sit still."

Luther followed after Diego, stopping at the stove to nod appreciatively at the eggs. "So, uh, what are we going to do? About the... about the body, I mean."

"We've got to bury him," said Nadine, taking another big sip of her coffee (cream, no sugar). "Right? Or do you think we should call the police?"

They'd all been in too much of a frenzied state last night to even process these kinds of questions. Should they have called the police? Nadine would be the first to admit she didn't trust them, but what if they really could have helped? They could've at least taken Elliott's body away. Then the rest of them wouldn't have to deal with it.

Diego was shaking his head. "No. We can't go to the police. They'll have questions for us, questions we don't have time to answer. We're gonna have to deal with this ourselves."

Nadine nodded, then slumped a little. She knew the answer was coming, and she did agree with Diego, but the thought of facing Elliott's body again... it was almost too much to handle.

She would handle it, though. She wasn't going to close her eyes and pretend Elliott hadn't gone through such horrible torture. She wasn't going to pretend that it wasn't a possibility that he'd died because of her.

When the eggs were ready, the three of them sat down at the table and ate them, strangely domestic, as if there wasn't a dead man in the living room. None of them spoke, except to ask each other to pass the salt or, once, to say 'bless you' after Luther sneezed. All of them had seen dead bodies before, but it wasn't the death itself that was haunting them—it was the question. Why? Why would someone do this? Why would someone take the life of Elliott, who had always been eccentric, but was also so full of life? Why would someone hold such anger, such cruelty towards the man, so much that they ripped his teeth out and stabbed him in the chest? Why, why, why?

Eventually, they couldn't put it off any longer. Every bite of hard-boiled egg had been eaten, every last drop of coffee had been swallowed, and now they had a job to do. An unpleasant, undesirable job to do—take care of Elliott's corpse.

In the light of morning, it was even worse to look at. His body had reached the livor mortis stage of death, tingeing his skin bluish-purple. When Nadine accidentally brushed his hand, it was cold and waxy under her fingers. She leaped back, nausea building in her throat.

She really wanted to vomit.

Diego reached forward tentatively, then drew the knife out of Elliott's chest. Nadine removed the clamps from his mouth, shaking all the while, and as soon as she'd finished, Luther covered him with a sheet.

"I can't believe Elliott's dead," he said.

Diego stared blankly at the sheet. "He was a good guy. Deserved better than this."

"He did," Nadine agreed, smoothing out the sheet. There were flecks of Elliott's blood on her hands, and she squeezed them into fists. For a moment—and just a moment—the Incident flashed into her mind. "He deserved so much fucking better than this."

Diego turned, his eyes moving towards the railing, to the message scrawled in Elliott's blood on the floor below. "Elliott must've been getting too close to the truth," he said. "It smells like the feds."

Nadine blinked. "You think this was the FBI?"

"Are you out of your mind?" Luther asked, similarly bewildered. "Diego, if this was the federal government, they would take him somewhere and question him. They wouldn't..." he gestured to the covered corpse, "...do this. No, this is the work of a psychopath."

"'Oga Foroga'," commented Diego, leaning over the railing. "That a name?"

Luther and Nadine both joined him in peering down at the message. "It could be," said Nadine, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "But it would be a foreign name. See the umlauts?"

"What the hell are umlauts?" Diego asked.

Nadine pointed. "The dots over the o's," she said. "They're called umlauts."

"Well, let's look her up," Luther suggested.

They headed back to the kitchen, where Luther took Elliott's blue phonebook off the top of the fridge and began to rifle through the pages. "Okay..." he breathed, flipping to the F last names. Diego sat down on the table, and Nadine leaned against the wall. Both of them knew it was a one-person job.

Nadine didn't expect any results, but only a few seconds had gone by before Luther's eyes widened. "Holy shit, I found her."

Immediately, both Diego and Nadine stepped forward, their eyes straining as they tried to make out the tiny print. Fortunately, Luther's finger was pointed directly at the name, so it didn't take Nadine long to find Foroga Olga—LJ 5-0116.

"'Olga Foroga'," said Luther. "That must be her."

"Call the bitch," Diego instructed. Nadine blinked down at the name.

"If that's her, she spelled her name wrong," she pointed out. "Look, there's an 'l' in the phonebook, and no 'l' in the message. There also aren't any umlauts here."

"Maybe those weren't umlauts," Luther suggested. "Maybe she just spilled some... uh, blood."

Nadine shrugged. "Well, I guess we won't know unless we try calling her."

"On it," said Luther, picking up the rotary phone. He inputted in Olga Foroga's number and held the phone to his ear. "It's ringing," he told the other two, who clustered near him. Then, after a second: "Uh, hello, Olga?" He took the phone away from his ear for a moment to whisper, "It's her. She sounds old. What should I say?"

Diego gestured at him to keep speaking, and Nadine's heart thudded. If this 'Olga Foroga' was really the sonofabitch who'd murdered Elliott, then she was going to have words.

Luther cleared his throat. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said into the phone. "Um, I was just wondering—what? My name? Is, uh, Luther Hargreeves, and—"

Nadine took the phone from him and put it to her ear. "This is Olga Foroga?" she asked, clenching her fists. Then she paused, for a very old, very croaky voice responded to her on the other end of the line. A voice that certainly didn't sound like someone who would rip out teeth for fun.

"That's me, dear. I'm Olga. What can I do for you?"

Nadine was suddenly feeling awkward. This couldn't be the one who'd killed Elliott. She twisted the cord around her finger and asked, "So, euh, that was my friend, back there. And, euh, we were just wondering—"

Before she could finish her sentence, Diego snatched the phone from her hand and shot her a look. He didn't waste time on pleasantries as he growled, "You killed one of ours, Olga, now we're coming after you. You will be dead by nightfall."

"Hey." Nadine's eyes shot to the source of the voice, and found Five, standing at the doorway of the kitchen. He was wearing his uniform, as usual, but he also happened to be covered in blood. She didn't have time to wonder about this, though, before Five was continuing, "It's Öga För Öga, idiots. Swedish for 'an eye for an eye.' It means the Swedes killed Elliott."

Diego blinked, then said into the phone, "Wrong number. Have a lovely day."

He hung up, and Luther swallowed. "We would've gotten there."

"At least we tried," Nadine added.

Internally, though, she was both humiliated and infuriated. Humiliated because she should've guessed that it was the Swedes who had killed Elliott, but that possibly hadn't even come to her mind. And infuriated, because she now knew the identity of the people who had tortured and murdered him. She gritted her teeth. If she ever met up with that trio of blond assholes again, she was going to make them wish they'd never been born.

Five, meanwhile, had actually peeled off the jacket of his Umbrella Academy uniform, leaving him in just a bloodstained shirt and tie. Luther watched him set his jacket down, and commented, "Uh, you have some blood on you."

"A lot of blood, actually," said Diego.

Five didn't care to respond to that. Instead, he pushed past the three of them, heading into the bathroom. Luther called after him. "Five, what did you do?"

Five didn't answer. Instead, he washed up at the sink, cleaning the blood off with a rag. When it became clear he wasn't going to say anything until he was spick-and-span, everyone busied themselves. Luther and Diego finally found fresh clothes, and Nadine put on another pot of coffee. When she'd done that, a new mug in hand, she watched him impatiently, waiting for an explanation as to why he resembled a serial killer.

Then Five looped his tie around his neck and made her forget about all that. "So, I found a way home."

"What?" Luther asked. "How?"

"All the details are irrelevant," began Five, which immediately spelled bad news, "but... I made a deal to get back to our timeline."

"What about doomsday?" Diego asked.

"Won't happen."

"Any changes to the timeline?" Nadine questioned.

"All should be smoothed out."

"And the 2019 apocalypse?" Luther inquired.

"Everything will be back to normal." Five finally stepped out of the bathroom, looking leagues cleaner. "All right? Now, no more questions." He pushed his way through the trio again. "We gotta go."

"Go?" Nadine asked. "Go where? Five, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"We have to find the others," Five responded, then picked up a large briefcase that had been sitting on one of the chairs. "Luther, you get Allison. Diego, Klaus. I'll get Vanya. Nadine, you can come with me if you want, or you can just make sure you get to our destination on time. We meet back in the arrival alley in seventy-seven minutes.

"Here," he said, handing all three of them a watch. "I've synchronized these watches. Nadine, you coming or not?"

"No, I—" Nadine's mind was reeling. "So, we're actually going back? We're going back to 2019?"

"Yes," snapped Five. "We are, but we don't have much time. If we don't get there in seventy-six minutes and thirty seconds, we'll be stuck here."

"Then I've got to talk to Molly," said Nadine. "I'll stay here."

Five nodded. "All right. Don't be late."

"Okay, let's do this," said Luther, looking down at his watch.

With another nod of affirmation, Five began to walk off, but before he could get too far, Diego called after him. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You show up drenched in blood and expect us to believe everything's gonna go back to normal if we go home now?"

Five, who'd drawn to a halt when Diego had spoken, gestured to Elliott's concealed corpse. "Elliott just got killed because of us," he snapped. Guilt squirmed into the pit of Nadine's belly.

"What about Dad?" Diego started forward. "What about JFK?"

"Diego," Five started, "we have a chance to go home and make things right. We are taking it."

"He's right," said Nadine. "We've messed with the timeline too much. I think it's time we go home and sort things out."

And I'll get to see my dad again, she added internally, touching the screen of her cellphone. It had been far too long since she'd hugged him, since she'd had breakfast with him, since she'd drank with him at the bar. It had been far too long since he'd sat her down, asked about her girlfriends, and consoled her when she admitted her relationships weren't going well. Maybe thirty-one-year-olds weren't meant to still need their father, but Nadine did. She would do anything to see him again.

Diego looked down, considering this. Then: "I have to say goodbye to Lila."

Five threw his arms out in exasperation. "Lila doesn't give a shit about you, Diego! She never did. She's one of them. She's a member of the Commission."

Nadine's mouth dropped open. "What? How is that—that can't be true."

Diego, too, was unconvinced. "No way. Not possible."

"She was just using you to get to me," said Five, his voice harsh. As he spoke, he began to walk off, heading for the stairs. "You're the Oswald of this story, my friend. The goddamned patsy."

"You don't know what you're talking—"

Before Diego could finish his sentence, Five suddenly teleported right in front of him, cutting his words off. With a snarl, he thrust his finger in Diego's face and spat, "If you don't do this, I'll kill you myself. Got it?"

He didn't even give Diego time to answer. He just disappeared once more, leaving the room full of awkward silence. Well, at least until Luther sighed heavily, put a consoling hand on Diego's shoulder, and said, "Women. Am I right?"

Nadine rolled her eyes. "First off, I hate when guys say 'women' like that. As if they expect our entire goddamned gender to be overdramatic or a bitch or whatever. Secondly, if you want to say goodbye to Lila, Diego, then none of us will stop you. I don't know where Five got the idea that she's in the Commission, but he's got to be wrong. I mean, come on. This is the woman who made peanut butter and jam sandwiches with me and painted Elliott's toenails. She doesn't seem like a time travelling killer."

Diego shoved his hands in his pockets. "Thanks, Nadine."

"All right, all right, let's move, Diego," said Luther. "We're running out of time. Nadine, say your goodbyes and head right over. Don't dally, okay? We've only got one chance at this."

Nadine saluted. "Got it. Hurry off, you two."

The two men nodded, and as Nadine turned back to the hallway, she could hear their receding footsteps. As she stepped down the hall, heading for the bedroom, Luther's words replayed in her mind. Say your goodbyes and head right over.

But Nadine Vidal was not going to say goodbye to Molly Hamasaki that easily. Not after everything. So, although she knew it was a long shot, she was going to do it regardless.

She was going to ask Molly to come with her to 2019.

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HAVEN: ÖGA FÖR ÖGA scene let's gooooo!! fun fact: i originally thought nadine couldn't be a part of it because i wanted her in the hair salon scene with vanya, allison, and klaus, and then i realized that i'm a dumbass who got the timeline wrong, and that she can be in BOTH!! hell yeah!!!

the next chapter is gonna be another doozy, so i hope you're ready!! i wrote it while listening to "the race against time" on tua season two soundtrack, so you can probably guess what kind of chapter it's gonna be. whoops.

thanks for reading!! <333