It had become painfully obvious - though that could have been the roller rink birthday party wounds speaking - that things hadn’t exactly been right since he had come back from the other side, a little bit louder, a little more ruder, and a lot less willing to be a welcome mad for anyone who wanted to step on him like he had been a long-dead welcome mat for anyone who wanted to step on him like a background piece to their lives. It was as much of a change in attitude as it had been a change in form, personality skewing just like his appearance had, which could have been seen as a renewal of self, but that just wasn’t how things worked to his knowledge; he couldn’t just pull himself together without an outside force and while he knew well enough Lily had been the catalyst for his return, it was an ever-pressing curiosity as to how.

If this wasn’t the San Francisco he belonged in, a member of the Sparrow Academy as led by Sir Reginald Hargreeves and not the Umbrella Academy as every single sign pointed to, then where was it? If this Sir Reginald Hargreeves, the Monocle no matter which way the universe was sliced, wasn’t the one that had founded the Sparrow Academy, then where was he? And, in turn, if these weren’t the siblings he recognized, this Umbrella Academy fell into the bodies of others, where were they? It made sense to believe that he had been pulled from somewhere in time and space to this place, to this body, from another timeline, fit into piece not unlike a square peg in a circular hole, but at the same time, it left him to wonder just what was in store.

So, he had brought out the cards, a vestigial feeling in his bones suggesting that, even if they didn’t help, they could at least point him in the right direction or confirm what he had been feeling; that this was a brand new slate to be someone he hadn’t been before - be it in embracing the Machiavellian cunning he felt run deep, brought on from a world different from the one Ben Hargreeves had grown up in with the Umbrella Academy or entertaining those things that had gone to the wayside while Henry had been caught up in the woes of his emerging super powers, something that turning his back on obviously hadn’t helped as much as it had destroyed.

There had only been one question considered as he read through the cards, stopping to tap his fingers on The Emperor as he considered the meaning of such a draw in such a position: The Father Figure of the Tarot, wise and authoritative through experience, and all too reminiscent of an individual it seemed the Umbrella Academy could have been better off without and the Sparrow Academy seemed to thrive in to different extremes. His fingers danced over it for a second, picking it up as if there would be something more read from the tactile component, thoughts harkening back to the rather one-sided conversation he had with the ghostly apparition of his father.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves may have been dead - that much was certain - but surely that didn’t mean he couldn’t readily meddle in the affairs of his children, however many of them he had throughout all the strings that could have created their universe and those parallel to it; and Henry took that into consideration as he set the card back down.

It was best not to let him stand in the way of happiness, so Henry wouldn't let him.

But he would have to be patient.