Word count: 4484

𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐇'𝐒 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐋𝐘 blinked open, but only met the same gold as before. She slowly sat up, rubbing the back of her head. She couldn't remember falling asleep, nor even laying on the ground, but there she was.

Her breathing was starting to grow heavy as she clambered to her feet, anxiety beginning to overtake her as she looked around at the shimmering gold that swirled around her.

Elizabeth tried to calm herself to the best of her abilities, taking deep breaths as she slowly paced around . . . wherever she was.

How long had she been asleep? Maybe a few hours, or half a day at most. At least that's what it felt like. . . .

Her mind raced as she tried to think of what had happened. She walked around for who knows how long, just trying to think of an answer. But nothing came to mind.

Suddenly, she realized: she was wearing a watch. That most definitely could help her keep track of time.

She pulled back the sleeve of her blazer but was surprised as she watched the second hand move quicker than she was used to. With furrowed brows, she waited until it hit the twelve, and began counting seconds by herself, aloud, while the second hand went at its own pace.

Once she got to sixty seconds, the second hand had already hit twelve, now only a tick past two. She tested again. And again. Seven more times. Same result.

So that was one thing she knew for sure about the portal: time ain't right. Or at least, the time passed differently in the portal than in the actual world.

That was a problem. A big problem.

Sure, it was only eleven seconds more than a minute, but in the long run, that could turn into days, months, years, decades, and so on.

Elizabeth needed to find a solution. And fast.

But fast was the opposite of how long it was taking. While it was harder to keep track of the time, she knew that days, months, years were flying past as she tried to make new portals, cried, slept, yelled at the portal, and grew more and more frustrated.

She was so hungry. And thirsty. And sore. And exhausted. And missing the people she loved so dearly. Especially Five. Oh, how much she missed him. And how angry she was at him for being the stupidest boy in existence.

But still, she missed him. How much she longed to tell him that she loved him one more time, or to hear the same words come from his mouth. She wasn't sure that she'd ever hear those three words again.

For some reason, she wasn't dead, despite the fact that she hadn't eaten or drunk anything in quite a while. She figured that perhaps since time was different in there, a lot of other shit was different as well.

At some point in time later (she had given up on trying to figure out how long it had been), Elizabeth walked around, her lips pursed as she looked around. Everything looked exactly the same. Not that that was really any surprise to her.

Elizabeth had stopped blasting the portal with her energy a long time ago; it didn't affect the portal in the least. She tried making another portal to get out, but nothing would ever be conjured.

She sighed, putting her hands on her hips. Were there any ideas she hadn't exhausted yet? She didn't think so. Every hopeful theory that came to mind proved to be useless, and at that point, she thought that perhaps she should just call it quits and lay there in misery forever.

She missed Five. She missed Allison. Diego. Klaus. Ben. Vanya. And, yes, even Luther. Definitely Grace. Pogo. Reginald . . . Well, she was doing just fine without him.

Her mind raced as she tried to think of any other possibility to get out of this place and return home, but she ended up only drawing blanks. How could one get themselves unstuck from . . . time?

She didn't want to give up; she didn't want to lose faith that she'd be able to go back home to the people she loved, but . . . it was seeming as though there was no option left.

But what could she do? She couldn't even die in there, so she'd spend the rest of eternity there—which she most definitely did not want.

All that was left was hope. And that was quickly diminishing.

She laid back against the cold, hard nothingness and shut her eyes. She felt as if she were slowly going insane. Talking to herself was bad enough, but then again, who else could she talk to?

It wasn't long before she could hardly remember what she looked like. All that she knew for sure was that her hair was black, her skin was fair, and just about anything else that she could see. Her eye colour, her smile, the structure of her face—they were all fading.

There were a couple of things she could do to pass the time. She played with the small toys that she made out of her energy. She braided her hair and then unbraided it. She sang under her breath before remembering that no one could hear her, and then she sang as loud as she could. The tune Grace always hummed became familiar on her lips.

Home had become a distant memory. The smell of freshly-baked cookies and the sound of her friends laughing almost seemed like a dream. Yet with every passing moment, she missed it all even more.

She kept her voice in use constantly. Despite knowing her intelligence would already help her do so, she didn't want to forget anything. She would repeat paragraphs from her textbooks, remind herself of what all her friends liked, and sometimes mumble absolute nonsense.

After what felt like forever and a year, she had come to terms with her fate. Nothing worked. She was destined to die (or at least, suffer) at the hands of her own creation.

But then:

Elizabeth's eyes widened as a crack of light split right in front of her. The glowing white was such a refreshing colour from the gold she had been constantly staring at. It grew bigger and bigger, and she suddenly felt the room (if she could even call it that) begin to quake.

That couldn't be good.

It felt as if the shaking was growing more violent with each passing second, making Elizabeth wobble dangerously. The crack was almost seven feet tall by then, the enticing white inviting her to enter.

She shrugged. Anything was better than what she was in right now. Even if it killed her, that would be a million times better than her current situation.

Elizabeth jumped through the white, tumbling onto something soft after she fell. Her eyes opened and quickly adjusted to the bright light.

Tears came to her eyes as she registered the colours in front of her. Green. Blue. White. Brown.

She was in some sort of field, she quickly realized with a glance around. A smile cracked her lips and she slowly ran her hand through the blades. The grass tickled her skin, and she giggled. How good it felt to giggle again.

She sat up, crossing her legs. She ripped out a small patch of grass and lifted it to her nose, and took a big whiff. Her smile grew at the scent.

She dropped the grass back onto the ground before looking around her again, though she didn't recognize her surroundings. Surely, it didn't matter where she was, she could always make a portal and go home. Assuming she had enough energy to do so.

Elizabeth closed her eyes as she pushed her hands out, keeping the image of the Academy clear in her mind as she strained to use her energy. She envisioned the main foyer of the house, with its checkered floors and stone pillars, trying her hardest to remember every small detail of the room.

When she opened her eyes, a new portal was ready to go.

With a sigh of relief, Elizabeth stepped through the portal and into the main foyer of the house. It was dark, all of the lights had been turned off, and the only source of light was the faint sunlight that streamed in through the glass of the door behind her.

Although, it was quite strange that the lights weren't on; the only time they were off was at night.

The house was eerily silent, as opposed to the constant bustle and chatting of students that filled the air. Maybe they had gone out on a mission?

Elizabeth began to walk up the staircase, her eyebrows furrowed as she looked around and didn't see anything.

Just as she made it to the top of the staircase, however, a familiar voice called out from behind her, "Who's there?"

"Pogo?" Elizabeth turned and leaned over the tall wooden railing to see the chimpanzee looking around with an expression of fright on his face.

His widened eyes only widened further as he registered her face and voice. "Miss . . . Miss Elizabeth?"

"Pogo, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed quickly as she rushed down the staircase to meet him in the middle of the room. "I know I shouldn't have left, I just . . . I just needed to make sure Five was okay. Is Dad angry?"

"Miss Elizabeth, you . . ." A disheartened look came over Pogo's face as he inspected her face, and he heaved a deep sigh. "A lot has happened ever since you've left."

"Why?" Elizabeth tilted her head, her eyebrows knitting tightly together as she registered his expression. "How much could've happened during a couple of years?"

Well, she wasn't sure if it had been a couple of years. It had probably been much longer than that. It was a rough estimate, but she really didn't have any indication as to when the day started and ended; in that portal, there was no sun, there was no moon, and she certainly was not going to stare at her watch every minute of the day.

"A couple . . . ?" Pogo exhaled before turning and beginning to walk towards the living room, gesturing for her to accompany him in doing so. "Follow me."

Elizabeth heeded and sat on the opposite couch to him, nervously shifting in her spot as she waited for him to speak. She tried to understand his pursed lips and unsure eyes but found herself unable to.

The living room was much brighter than the main foyer, this room having many more windows through which sunlight gushed through. As she waited for Pogo to collect his thoughts, she shifted so that the sunlight could hit her, and embraced the warmth it bathed her in.

Far too focused on the sunlight and the feel of the couch underneath her hands, Elizabeth didn't notice the fact that the portrait of the Umbrella Academy now held four young adults and Reginald, or that there were single oil paintings of herself and Five hanging over the fireplace.

"Miss Elizabeth," Pogo finally said after a moment, an eyebrow arching, "you say you have been gone for . . . a couple of years?"

"I think so." Elizabeth nodded earnestly before scrunching her face. "It might've been longer. I'm not too sure, I couldn't really keep track of time."

"All right, before I—before I explain further, could you perhaps tell me what happened?" Pogo inquired as he pushed his spectacles up, the rim glinting in the light.

She nodded once more before delving into her recount, "Well, I figured I'd try to follow Five, so I made a portal to go through time. I guess I wasn't focused enough on it, or I didn't know the proper steps, because the first portal entrance closed, but I wasn't in the future. I was just . . . stuck in the portal. Then, I spent some time thinking, and then a lot of time sleeping and then this light appeared and I went through, arrived in some field, and made a portal to come here."

"Ah . . ." Pogo gave a slow nod of understanding as he glanced down at the floor, letting out a long sigh before shifting his gaze back up to her. "Miss Elizabeth, it has been much, much longer than a couple of years, I am afraid."

She felt a small, uneasy feeling begin to creep up her stomach as her eyebrows furrowed, and she tentatively questioned, "How long?"

"Well . . . ," he hesitated for a moment before continuing, "twelve years, four months, and fourteen days."

It took her a second to process this, and as soon as she did, she exclaimed, "Twelve years?! How could it have been—oh." She suddenly straightened up, her eyebrows furrowing. "I forgot."

Pogo tilted his head as he curiously asked, "Forgot what, Miss Elizabeth?"

"When I first arrived there, I compared this world's time to the time in the portal, using my watch. A minute here was a minute and eleven seconds in there. So, while twelve years passed here . . ." She quickly calculated in her head, her eyes squinting. "It had been a little more than ten for me. So, not much of a difference, that's good. I'm . . . twenty-seven, I guess. And the others are twenty-nine."

"Ah, well, I guess it is fortunate that you are the one with enhanced intelligence," Pogo chuckled lightly before his expression became grim once again. "But during that time that you were gone, there had been a series of . . . unfortunate events that have taken place."

Elizabeth began to fidget with the hem of her sleeve. "Such as?"

"Well, a few months after your and Master Five's disappearance, there had been an incident during one of the missions and . . ." Pogo gave a heavy sigh as he looked towards the window and slightly shook his head. "Master Ben passed."

Shock immediately overtook Elizabeth, and she sat in silence for a moment, her mouth slightly agape. And then when the words processed in her head, tears begin to roll themselves down her cheeks.

Ben was dead. And she never even got to say goodbye. All those years of imagining what it would be like to see him again—all would now remain works of fiction.

She leaned her elbows onto her knees, shoving her face into her hands as she let the tears flow out, sniffling as she let out small sobs.

It took her a few minutes to collect herself, and she nodded for Pogo to continue as she wiped her tears away with her sleeve.

"After about a year, the rest of the students all departed from the Academy, pursuing their own things," Pogo resumed with a small frown. "Except for Master Luther, he had remained here. Your father then sent him on a mission to the Moon, which is where he is. Or at least, was. He is on his way back currently, he should be arriving soon. In fact, all of your siblings should be arriving in less than an hour or so."

Elizabeth's eyebrows knit tightly together as she wiped the remaining tears with the back of her hand. "They are? Why?"

"Well, that is the last thing, I suppose." Pogo looked down towards the carpeted floor, a solemn expression crossing his face. "Your father . . . recently passed away."

"Dad . . . died?" She could barely even believe her own ears. She would've never thought about how he would die, and the fact that it had happened while she wasn't even there was insane to her. "How?"

"A heart attack," he answered heavily before straightening up and giving her a small smile. "Now, before the others arrive, perhaps you should take a shower and eat something? I'm sure they will be more than excited to see you; we have all missed you dearly, Miss Elizabeth."

"I've missed you guys too. And I should definitely shower; it has been ten years, after all. For me, at least," Elizabeth agreed as she stood up, brushing off the skirt of her dress. "I just have one more question, if you don't mind, Pogo."

He raised his eyebrows. "Yes?"

She sighed, licking her lips nervously before she tentatively asked, "Did Five ever . . . ?"

Pogo was silent for a moment, his eyes shifting over to the portrait over the mantel before shaking his head and giving her a frown. "No."

Giving a small nod, she once again made her way up the two sets of staircases, her eyes wandering over the rooms and decor that she had been seeing only in memories for the past ten years. She quite enjoyed the feeling of the staircase's railing; its smooth texture gave her joy that she never thought it would've before.

Before she could reach her room, however, she found Grace dusting the lights on the walls, a blank expression in her eyes and an empty smile settled on her lips.

"Mom?" Elizabeth spoke tentatively, stepping closer as she examined the woman.

Grace turned to her, an endearing smile replacing the previous one as she grabbed Elizabeth's hands and squeezed gently. "Oh, Elizabeth, darling, you've returned!"

"Yeah, I'm . . . I'm here." Elizabeth smiled with a small nod. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, dear." Grace gave her another smile that didn't seem to meet her eyes, leaning forward and planting a kiss that left an imprint of her red lipstick onto her forehead. "Go wash up."

Elizabeth nodded and continued on her path, using the time to think about what happened and how she had managed to unconsciously escape her portal. She came to a realization as she reached her room, and she let out a small sigh.

The portal must've been unstable. That's why it split open, and why there was an earthquake-like situation going on. She had no idea what had caused it to become unstable, though.

Perhaps it had been too long, and her mind and energy weren't able to keep it open any longer? Or maybe the universe forced it to do that? Or maybe, there was another rift in time that affected her portal?

Elizabeth opened the door to be greeted by her room being exactly the same way it had been before she had left. She wished someone had at least cleaned up a little after she disappeared; her blankets were still strewn across the bed (courtesy of Five), and her desk was a clutter of pens and the study notes that belonged to Klaus (she wasn't surprised he didn't take them back after all these years).

Elizabeth opened her closet, her eyes roaming the space that held only identical sets of the uniform she wore at that moment. She plucked one of the hangers off and went to the bathroom, making sure to lock it behind her.

She looked at herself in the mirror, her eyes then widening as she processed what stared back at her. Though she had forgotten what she had looked like, she now recognized herself. And not in a way that was particularly good.

She looked exactly the same as when she had entered the portal—face, hair, body, everything. She was still in her seventeen-year-old body. As a twenty-seven-year-old.

Perhaps since the portal was all wonky, she had somehow become biologically immortal. So, her body didn't age. That was the best guess her brain could come up with.

About half an hour later, once she had showered and devoured three peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches that she had made in the kitchen, Elizabeth returned to her room.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, which immediately release a mess of dust. She didn't mind, though.

She laid back against the bed, and her lips drew into a smile. Finally, she could lay back onto a soft, comfortable mattress, and not . . . portal ground.

Her hands squeezed the blanket. There was no better feeling.

She sat back up with a heavy sigh, and then looked around.

"I should probably clean," she muttered before sneezing. "God, it's so messy."

She made her bed, threw out Klaus's study notes, put her pens back into her pencil case, and then decided to go open her windows to get some fresh air.

As she did so, she accidentally knocked over her lamp that had been sitting on the edge of the nightstand, resulting in a loud thump as it fell to the floor.

Just then, a man's voice yelled out, "Who the hell is in her room?"

Elizabeth froze in her spot. Who was that? The voice didn't belong to Pogo, and it most definitely was not her father's.

The door burst open a few moments later, and the same voice continued angrily, "Get out of this room right now or else I will cut your limbs—"

He suddenly stopped when she turned to face him, his eyes immediately widening as they processed the sight in front of him. His voice softened to a whisper as he uttered:

"Eli—Elizabeth?"

She squinted her eyes at him for a moment, trying to connect his face with the sense of familiarity she felt. Elizabeth then realized who it was with a small gasp.

"Diego?"

He instantly rushed towards her as she stood up, engulfing her in the tightest hug that she'd ever experienced. Although, it was a bit uncomfortable, due to all the leather straps he had slung across him and the two long knives that were resting in some sort of sheath on his back.

"You . . . You're . . ." He pulled away, his arms still wrapped tightly around her as he inspected her face carefully. "Not dead. And also . . . still seventeen?"

"Yeah. It's a lot," Elizabeth replied softly, a frown forming on her face as she noticed a long, apparent scar that started just above his right ear and extended down to the middle of his cheek. "And I guess I'll explain the other stuff when everyone else gets here."

Just then, a woman's voice sounded as she neared the door, sounding irritated. "Diego, why the hell are you being so loud? I could hear you from outside the—" The woman stepped into the room, and just like Diego, froze as soon as she saw Elizabeth. "Holy shit. You're back?"

Allison pushed Diego away and hugged Elizabeth tightly, the scent of lavender floating from her blonde ringlets.

Allison kissed her cheek before pulling away, a fond look growing on her face as she murmured, "I missed you, girl. Also, where the hell did you go? Also, why do you still look like that?"

"I'll explain later, it's—oh, Luther." Elizabeth's eyebrows raised as a man with extremely broad shoulders and a confused expression entered. "Yes, I'm alive, I'll explain everything later, and Jesus Christ, you're huge now." Her eyes widened as she took in his large figure which was much different from the skinny body she was used to seeing.

Luther seemed to not have heard her last sentence, his eyes as wide as the others as he stared at her and questioned, "Elizabeth?"

"Mhm." She nodded. "Now, uh . . . should we go to the living room? I don't think my room will be able to take Klaus and Vanya, now that you guys are all grown and shit."

Diego's mood instantly changed upon the mention of her name, a scowl arriving on his face as he shook his head. "Vanya isn't coming. Or at least, she better not come."

"What?" Elizabeth looked around the group, confused as she waited for an answer. "Why?"

"Vanya . . ." Allison sighed, exchanging a dark look with Luther before continuing, "She wrote an autobiography about her life as Number Seven and exposed a bunch of things about our family. We did not come off too well."

"Well, not exactly true." Luther folded his arms with a small scoff. "Vanya only wrote good things about Elizabeth. The rest of us though—yeah, we seemed like assholes."

"Some of you are assholes," Elizabeth pointed out with a shrug.

Diego frowned. "Rude."

"I didn't say any names." She raised her hands in defence, a humoured smile reaching her lips. "But the fact that you thought I was talking about you says a lot. Anyway—living room?"

Allison wrapped an arm around Elizabeth's shoulders, and the four of them made their way to the living room.

"Why don't you just tell us what happened now?" Diego raised his eyebrows as they sat down on the couches. "Klaus isn't going to understand a word you say, he's probably—no, definitely—high."

"Still doing drugs?" Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, receiving a nod from him in return that made her groan.

"Oh, yeah," Diego scoffed. "I've never seen him sober since we were twelve."

"Oh, God." Elizabeth leaned back on the couch, shaking her head as a small sigh escaped her lips. "Okay. Well . . . I can't say that I'm a hundred percent right about all of this, it's mainly just theories, but I'll explain. I tried to make a portal but ended up creating a rift in the space-time continuum and getting stuck in there. I couldn't get out, I have no idea why. Then, one day, my portal became unstable, and it allowed me to fall back into the actual world, here in 2019, although again, not too sure why. Also, I guess it's worth mentioning that one minute here was a minute and eleven seconds there, so technically . . . I'm twenty-seven years old."

"You're twenty-seven? You're younger than us?" Diego questioned, his eyes wide as he leaned forward. "By two years?"

"Yeah," she sighed.

The other three had looks of bafflement on their faces as they stared at her.

Luther spoke, "But why did you try to travel through time?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "Because I was trying to find Five."

"Fi—you think that's what he did? He time-travelled?" Allison questioned as she exchanged a look with Luther.

"I mean, yeah." Elizabeth nodded, her eyebrows furrowing as she looked around at the group. "He's an impulsive guy, and he had just gotten mad at Dad for not being able to time-travel. Where did you guys think he went? Or that I went? Jamaica?"

"We thought—we thought that maybe you two ran away somewhere," Diego said tentatively, letting out a small sigh. "But if you came back, where's Five?"

"Well, that's the one thing I don't know." Elizabeth shook her head, a troubled expression crossing her face as her fingers began to play with the hem of her dress. "He could've been successful and stayed in whatever time he went to because he liked it there; successful but isn't able to come home for some reason; unsuccessful and got stuck somewhere; or unsuccessful and . . . died."

The three of them were silent as they processed this information, their eyes lowered to their laps and their eyebrows knit together tightly.

After a moment, Luther looked back towards Elizabeth and hesitantly asked, "And how are we supposed to find out which one of those it is?"

"We can't," Elizabeth answered as she gave him a tight smile. "We just have to hope that Five'll come back to us."