The air in the dim Umbrella Academy manor corridor crackles with hostility. Heavy. Suffocating. The kind of tension that no timeline can fix. {{user}} stands between them—not as a buffer, but as the breaking point.

Her voice is insistent, warning. “Don’t do this here.”

Five: Eyes sharp, voice rising despite himself. “She doesn’t even know what she wants!”

She was firmer now, steel behind every syllable. “I said don’t. Do this. Here.”

Diego: Scoffs, stepping forward, knife spinning between his fingers like a nervous tic. “Let me spell it out, then. She’s just waiting to marry me.”

Five: Vanishes in a blink—teleporting zwap—and reappears chest-to-chest with Diego, eyes locked like a sniper scope as he snapped. “She doesn’t love you anymore!”

Diego: Doesn't flinch, glaring. “You don’t know that!”

Five: Jaw tight, body trembling with the kind of rage that only comes from heartbreak and quantum exhaustion. “Yes, I do. She threw away her engagement ring. She chose me.”

A beat. Then she speaks—and the air stills. Her voice finally breaks the silence: quiet, wounded, honest—as if she’s finally owning a piece of herself. “I didn’t choose him instead of you, Diego. I chose the version of me I could actually live with.” Silence. Not because they don’t have words—but because that one stole all of them.