(y/n) - your name

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sighed as I walked down the busy streets, my hoodie pulled over my head tight while music blasted through my ears. I ignored the people around me and the sounds of the busy streets as I just tried to get home-well, what now was my new home.

It had been a couple weeks since I dropped back in my universe and I still haven't adjusted. I wasn't back home, I was now living in New York for some reason. I was on a completely different continent. I didn't know where I worked, I didn't know anyone, didn't recognise any names that were in my contacts. I didn't know anything here, lost from the missing four years of knowledge of the world that left me behind. I had no one, not my friends or my family...

The only few things that were the same were my laptop and my passwords. Even the new phone wasn't the same one I owned 4 years back. I spent the entire day trying to figure out my life now, searching up pay slips on my emails and scouring through text messages on my laptop and my phone.

I wasn't friends with my old high school friends, I didn't even follow them on Instagram. It was like this was a completely different new life... one where I actually planned when I wanted to disappear...

A fresh start... a clean slate... and I was so alone...

I had Five, I had our family and now I had no one I knew.

I figured out where I worked, an Event service employee at some major event company. That was what I was studying so I guess I got my foot into the industry as I hoped I would. It was so hard getting back into work, to realise I worked with an event team that handled so many different artist clients for music events. I had no clue what I was doing, a lost child in an adult body that wasn't hers anymore

It was fine... pay was actually really good.

And yet my apparent fear of driving was non-existent in this world? I had a car and a license but I was terrified of getting into it. It didn't help that I was born and raised on a country where we drive on the left but here every drove on the right. I was avoiding the road for the life of me.

I tugged on my hoodie tighter as the summer winds blew over me badly, sweating from the heat of the weather and muttering angrily as to why I lived so far from my work. It was dangerous walking at night hence the hoodie.

I have to drive even if it kills me...

I sigh in the quick bliss of a coffee shop door opening and close and I let the intrusive thoughts win to just grab something cold to drink instead of going home. I settled in a booth by the window, enjoying the cool AC and paying for an extra cold oreo shake. I thank the waiter as he passed me my shake, sitting back in the booth as I watched people walk by on the streets outside, fiddling with my Umbrella necklace. I close my eyes, imagining Five was with me, bugging me to try the oreo shake knowing he never had one before. I open my eyes, my smile dropping when he wasn't there, when my shake was right where I left it and not in the hands of my love while giving me that cheeky grin of his while he finished it all. I sigh and drink the shake, the sweetness not lifting my mood and I look out the window again as I lay my head in my hand. My eyes were droppy, feeling sleepy and my eyes blink, seeing a familiar mess of brown hair and those green eyes disappear past the shop and I quickly shot up straight.

I run out of the shop desperately, my heart racing as I looked down the streets, swearing that I saw someone I was hoping to see again and I take in a deep breath. "Five...!?" I call out, ignoring the strange looks I got from people, waiting as the time ticked down for some sign of hope but it diminishes when nothing happens.

I had to stop.

I frown as I shake my head.

I was being delusional.

I head back inside the coffee shop, finishing the rest of my shake and running out of the shop to speed it back home. "Oh thank fuck..." I sigh in relief when I finally get into my building, getting into the elevator to reach my floor and unlocking the door to walk into my apartment. I sigh as pull my hoodie off and haphazardly throw it on my dining chair, dropping my backpack on the way to my bathroom where I grabbed my nightgown and a towel at the same time for a shower. Stripping and taking that hot shower felt so much better, getting out long after and drying off before getting dressed. I turn the AC and TV on, the TV playing whatever trash it was playing on the screen as I sat on the floor with my back resting against the couch.

It was like this every night, holding my legs to my chest and just... not knowing what to do as I buried my head in my arms, trying to drown out the silence that was slowly killing me. I'm trying to move on but I didn't feel like this was my life... This wasn't me, this wasn't my life... I had lost four years... four years of someone who wasn't me. I didn't know who my friends were, I didn't know who and why I worked for, what I was doing in my life.

I was a stranger in my own world...

I bury my head into my knees, letting the late night drift on without me. I couldn't sleep anymore. I just didn't want to do anything anymore... I just wanted to go back...

I lean my cheek on my knee as I watched the show playing on the TV, not understanding what was going on when I suddenly hear knocking on my door.

Maybe it's not my door and a neighbour's door-

I hear the knocking again and it was definitely on my door and not someone else. I freeze from the sound immediately, wondering who the fuck was knocking on my door this late at night. I don't even know anyone anymore, making sure to not talk to them until I figure out who I used to spend my time with or who were my new friends. I slowly stand up as my TV was on the extremely low volume, creeping towards my door to try and fool the person I wasn't awake but they kept knocking on my door.

I sigh in annoyance, deciding to just answer. "Who is it? What do you want?" I call out, frowning as I don't hear anything. "Just go the fuck away! I don't know who you are!"

I wish the door had a peephole!

"Is this (y/n)?"

"Depends on who you are!" I call back. "Just leave-"

"-please, it's urgent."

His voice sounds familiar...

It's a he right, it sounds like a male but I don't know anyone...

But he knows me and it might be rude to just yell at him to go away... right...?

Or maybe it's some creep stalker or murderous psycho!?

But they wouldn't risk standing out in the hallway with a security camera and just yelling for the neighbours to hear him...

I can't believe I'm doing this...

I unlock my door, opening it just a bit to see a young man standing there. My brows furrowed when he turned to face me and my eyes widen when I recognise who it was, slowly opening the door further.

"Aidan Gallagher? What are you doing here?" he looks at me with wide eyes, wearing a button-down shirt with a loose tie and suit pants for some reason. His hair was a frantic mess and he was panting like he had run a marathon but that didn't mean he wasn't still handsome.

But... there was something different about him... He-he didn't seem or give off the aura of Aidan... If that made sense?

His eyes were a brighter green, small scars littered on his revealed skin beneath his blazer. There was a hard blank look on his face and his hair was shorter than the usual long hair he normally had. I take a step back, my heart telling me that it was someone else when I catch a glimpse of a tattoo on his wrist.

It can't be...

He shakes his head, his eyes softening as he looks down at me. "I'm not Aidan..." he steps closer to me as he leans down and holds my cheek, catching a clear view of the familiar and famous Umbrella tattoo on his wrist. My heart hurt as it pounded against my chest, my head spinning as it went blank.

He was taller... so much taller and he had grown up so much. His baby face had defined and hardened but his eyes were softer than they were before. Every single sense of the haunted and murderous boy from the apocalypse I knew had grown up to be a man again, just warmth and care from his hold as he gently caressed my cheek as if I would break.

"Five...?" I whisper, almost breathless like he might disappear from in front of me. He nods and I could feel the heat from his hand and the softness of his thumb brushing against my cheek.

"You're as beautiful as the day I lost you..." His eyes tear up as he looked at me and my eyes well up as well, my hands shaking as I covered my mouth. I let out a sob as I hold his hand on my cheek, letting him pull me into his arms as I cried into his chest. I burst out in tears as I wrap my hands around him tight, holding onto him like my life depended on it.

He cried into my shoulder, almost in relief as he cradled my head against him. "I-I can't believe-I don't understand how...?" I lean back, sobbing heavily as I lean up to hold Five's cheeks to feel that he truly was here in front of me and that I wasn't crazy. I breakdown feeling the heat of his skin in my hands, wet with tears staining my fingers as he leaned up to hold my hands against his face tightly. "You're here... you're actually here..." I hiccup as I cried.

"I thought I lost you..." Five breathes out shakily, leaning into my touch and he squeezes his eyes shut tight to just feel me before kissing my palm. He opened his eyes and I well up with tears again to see how tired he looked, eyes so heavy from the lack of sleep and life. He was so exhausted and his body drooped down over me as he leaned his forehead on mine, like all the weight of the world just disappeared when he saw me. "I thought you were gone forever... I thought I lost you forever..."

I lean back to look at him but he quickly moves to pull me back like he was afraid I would disappear. "Five-"

"-no... please..." he whispers as he holds my hands tight in his and I squeeze his hands, slowly leading him back into my apartment and out of the hallway. He doesn't keep his eyes off me as I lock my front door behind him, taking him into my apartment. He held my hands tightly as I set him down on my couch but he didn't let me go so I sat down next to him.

He moved to hold my cheeks in his shaky hands and he lets out a sigh of relief. "I thought...I thought I came back to my universe... I don't understand how you're here..." I mumble out, him wiping my tears away gently. He doesn't say anything as he flicked his eyes over me, stopping on the umbrella necklace that hung around my neck. His eyes soften as he brushed my hair back and I lean into his touch, his breath hitching. He hesitantly lets me go, quickly reaching into his blazer pocket to take out my phone and a bunch of photos.

My phone...!?

The very same phone that I asked Five to grab before the portal closed in season 2, and the same one I left behind in the Umbrella Academy world in season 3. "I-I don't understand..."

Five turns my phone on and goes to the photo album. "When Allison made her wish... when we came back home at that park from the elevator but without our powers... when I lost you..." he mumbles out shakily, his hand reaching down to hold my hand and brush his thumb on the back of it. "We all came back, even Luther but you didn't and I... I just lost it. Everyone left me and you were gone. I searched for you... god I didn't stop searching for you. Not when your phone still existed. It was with me and when I saw the pictures..."

I look down at my phone and my heart breaks seeing the pictures from Luthers and Sloane's wedding night. The pictures of all of us together outside at the rock grotto on the roof and just being together as a family despite the world coming to an end. I gently take the phone, smiling sadly at the bittersweet photo. I was in the photo too, with Five as I sat next to him. He was looking at me the entire time with a love-filled look as I smiled for the camera.

I look up at Five to see him looking at me the exact same way and my heart squeezes. "This gave me hope that if you weren't gone from these photos, if this phone and this proof of you weren't erased then you would still be here somewhere... I still had my memories of you in this new universe reset..." Five whispers as he hands me the polaroid photos of our wacky prom poses that Chet took. "5 years... I searched for you for 5 years..." Five's voice cracks and I look at him in shock.

"Why... why me... why put yourself through that pain, why waste your time searching when you could've just moved on-" my voice muffles when Five leans down and kisses me feverously, our lips melding against our tears as he held my cheek.

I close my eyes and I cry from being able to feel him against me after so long, finally being able to hold him again and to have him next to me again. That same spark from our first kiss was there, burning hotter and sweeter and that same butterfly feeling in my stomach fluttered as I held Five's face in my hands. It was as if the world stopped and fireworks just burst around us, out hands holding onto each other tightly. He shudders as he leans back slightly to catch his breath before kissing me again, pressing into me harder. He didn't want to let me go and I didn't want to either, staying as close to each other as possible as he pulled me into his lap. I breath shakes as he kisses me deeply, my stomach fluttering and my heart pounding as I card my fingers through his hair and wrap my thighs around his waist. He squeezed me in a brutal grip to neve rlet me go, his fingers digging into my skin and I relished in the way he missed me just as much as I missed

"I love you... even across multiple universes... that's what we used to say." Five gasps as he leans back from my lips but doesn't stay far. "You are my love, my soulmate in every single universe..." He looks down at me with earnestness. "I will never stop looking for you (y/n)." I let out a sob and he pulls me into his arms to hug me, burying his face into my neck as I cry into his chest.

I wasn't alone anymore, not in this strange world.

"I missed you Five... I missed you so much it hurt..."

"I missed you too (y/n). I love you." I break out into a smile as I lean back, Five looking at me like I was his entire world as he brushed my hair back.

"I love you too Five." he smiles brightly, leaning his forehead on mine and pulling me close to just hold me. He held me tight as my hands roamed across his back before holding his face in mine.

I didn't want to let him go and he didn't want to let me go.

Edited