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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ʙ. ʙ. ᴇꜰꜰᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐒𝐈𝐗 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴀ ᴄʜᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴏɴ ᴍᴇ ꒱　


❝ YOU KNOW YOU'RE
SPECIAL TO ME, LEXA ❞

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It was just after lunch during their half-hour of free time on Saturday when nine-year-old Eight pulled Five aside. He gave her a questioning look as she asked, "can you come to the library with me? I need help looking for something."

His expression turned surprised as she knew the library better than pretty much everyone (except perhaps Ben) but he nodded anyway. Slipping her hand into his, they made their way to the room. He glanced down at the joined fingers and a light blush formed on his face. It wasn't that her touch was unusual or unwelcome, it was just that she'd never held his hand so obviously before. He was drawn out of his thoughts by her next question: "what do you think of the book Dad gave us to read for English?"

She glanced out of the corner of her eye to watch his reaction, which was a frown. "It's kind of boring, I guess. There should be more action. Why, what did you think?"

Alexa paused before she said, "I wanted to research one of the topics the book had."

Five gave her a curious look. "And you need my help for that?"

She nodded, avoiding his gaze and allowed her blonde hair to cover her face to hide her blush. They'd reached the library by now and with a gentle tug on his arm, she led him to the far back corner of the library where none of the hidden cameras could see them. There was a small space between the end of the bookshelf and the wall where two small children could fit comfortably. Pushing the boy lightly into the gap and against the wall of the bookshelf, she occupied the other space before she looked into his green eyes. They were about the same height which made it much easier to do so.

"Your research is back here?" Five questioned her. There weren't any books in this tiny space.

Alexa licked her lips nervously before she explained, "the, uh, research can't be found in books."

"Where can it be found, then?"

"With us," she answered. "I, um, wanted to do some. . ." She hesitated.

"You wanted to do what?" Five prompted her.

She looked up at him again to take in his green eyes and his lips— which were quirked in a curious smile— and the way his dark hair flopped into his eyes. Her throat was suddenly dry but she forced herself to continue. In a rushed voice she finished, "kissing research."

"Kissing research?"

She nodded quickly, hoping he'd understand. "The, uh, characters did it in the book. . . and I wanted to know what it was like. . ." she trailed off uncertainly before she hastily added, "you don't have to, though."

His smile widened despite the fact that his face had turned slightly red. "You don't have to be so nervous, you know. I don't mind participating in this. . . research."

Alexa's eyes met his, wide and surprised. "You don't?"

The boy shook his head, admitting in an almost embarrassed sort of way. "You know you're special to me, Lexa."

Alexa felt both pleased and rather silly. "You're special to me, too, Five. That's why I wanted your help."

He grinned at her as he examined the way her blue eyes had an almost hesitant look to them and how her blonde hair fell across her shoulders; he could even smell it in this small space, the scent of coconut and lavender that created a comforting aroma. Finding a strange, sudden courage, he asked, "do you want to do it now?"

Nodding, she hesitated, not really knowing what to do. Then they both leaned forward and their lips brushed softly against each other. It was over as quickly as it had begun but they were both smiling now. Alexa gave the boy a curious look. "Do you, uh, want to do it again?"

He nodded, and so they did. And again, and again. And they soon found that the space between the bookshelf and the wall was their favorite place, not Five's room.

☂☂☂

Alexa returned to her apartment after darkness had fallen and she let out a sigh of relief. With all the crap that came with her family, she was glad to be home. After taking a shower and changing into more comfortable clothes, she made a mug of tea and, in a fit of nostalgia, a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. Taking her items to her kitchen table, she spread her school papers out to finalize lesson plans for the upcoming week. While there wasn't much grading that had to be done outside of school she did always like to be prepared for class. Losing track of time, she worked for several hours on her plans only to be startled out of her stupor when she heard her window sliding up, apparently on it's own accord. Reaching for the first weapon she could find, her hands closed on her stapler. A faint smile appeared on her lips as the ghost of a taunt echoed in her ears. She stood up slowly, her eyes fixed on the figure that was climbing through the opening.

Leaping forward, she tugged him to the side and shoved him against the wall as she held her stapler high. Alexa dropped her arm immediately though when she saw who it was. With her heart pounding, she let Five go as she exclaimed, "Jesus!"

He smirked at her. "I'm not him, but thanks for the comparison." He then glanced at the open window. "You should have locks on your windows."

"I live on the second floor," she said with exasperation.

"Rapists can climb."

Sighing, she rolled her eyes. "You are so weird." Then she glanced down at his arm in concern. "Is that blood?"

"It's nothing," he insisted.

Letting out a huff of irritation at his stubbornness, she led him over to the kitchen table before she went to get the first aid kit. Sitting next to him, she gently picked up his arm and pulled the sleeve back, sucking in a sharp breath at the bloody makeshift bandage. As she started to clean the wound, she asked, "why are you here?"

He sighed. "I've decided you're the only one I can trust."

Although she was pleased that he trusted her, Alexa wanted to— needed to— hear the real reason. "Why me?"

"Because you care, and you'll listen."

She glanced up at him before she said, "okay."

He inhaled sharply as she cleaned the cut before he began: "when I jumped forward and got stuck in the future, do you know what I found?" She shook her head. Almost dejectedly— although that wasn't quite the right word— he admitted, "nothing. Absolutely nothing. As far as I could tell, I was the last person left alive. I never figured out what killed the human race but I did find something else: the date it happens." Alexa glanced up at him again as she paused in the middle of wrapping a fresh bandage. He looked right at her as he said, "the world ends in eight days and I have no idea how to stop it."

Letting out a sharp breath, her answer to that was, "I'll put on a pot of coffee."

☂☂☂

They sat at either end of her couch with Five staring off into the distance as he continued his story: "I survived on scraps. Canned food, cockroaches, anything I could find." He laughed hollowly. "You know that rumor that Twinkies have an endless shelf life? Well, it's total bullshit."

Alexa stared at him. "I can't even imagine."

"You do whatever it takes to survive or you die. So we adapted. Whatever the world threw at us, we found a way to overcome it."

At this, she gave him a confused look. "We?"

Ignoring the question, he glanced at her. "You got anything stronger?"

She nodded and they both stood up to go into the kitchen. He watched as she reached for the liquor. "You believe me, don't you?"

Setting the bottle down, she moved to get a glass and paused to look at him. "I don't not believe you. I know you've been gone and you're different now. There's something that had to cause that. It's just. . . a lot to take in."

She poured the drink into the glass and handed it to him. "Exactly what don't you understand?"

Alexa sighed. "I don't know," she started, before she studied him. "Your powers didn't work to get you back?"

He rolled his eyes as he took a sip of the drink. "Time travel is a crapshoot. I went into the ice and never acorn-ed. You think I didn't try everything to get back to my family?"

"I know you did," she said honestly, and she believed he would. If not to get back to his family, then to get back to her. Making a sudden decision, she looked at him. "I need to show you something."

He gave her a surprised and slightly curious look before he followed her into her bedroom. His expression turned amused as he said, "and what are we going to do in here?"

Alexa did a double-take before she glared at him. "Not what you're thinking. It wouldn't work." Her voice took on an almost sad tone.

Five looked at her, really taking her in for the first time and was almost surprised that she was taller than him. He knew he shouldn't have been— he'd seen her in the future, after all— but he couldn't help it; they'd always been relatively the same size since forever. She'd cut her long blonde hair into more of a bob around her face and her eyes were still blue, but there was a hardness in them that hadn't been there when they were children. 

There was a strange weight to both of them as well— her grief was an invisible cloak and he had donned the weight of the world like a hat. She'd grown into a woman and he had the body of a teen. Even if he hadn't been on a time crunch, she was right, he thought with a sinking heart, we wouldn't work. Brushing off the thought, he asked, "so why are we here?"

Looking almost embarrassed, she pointed first towards the chalkboard which he immediately recognized as his old one. His gaze slid past that to the wall behind, which was filled floor to ceiling with lined paper. The rest of her room looked normal but the floor around the chalkboard was littered with old VCRs and tattered books along with several spiral bound notebooks that looked like they had seen better days. Almost impressed, he wondered, "what's all this?"

"My, uh, equations."

He gave her a confused look as he remembered how much she hated math. "Equations?"

Alexa refused to meet his eyes as she bent to straighten a pile of books. "Uh, yeah. Once you didn't come back, I knew something was wrong. If the future was good, you'd have come back to rub it in Dad's face but when you didn't, well. . . I knew something was up. Do you remember teaching me about the equations?"

Speechless, he nodded, so she continued: "I didn't know shit about quantum mechanics or whatever time travel was, but I learned. I started off with movies and books about time travel—" She gestured to the mess on the floor. "—and took notes on what time travel was like in them. If there was a mention of equations, I wrote that down too. I used your previous math for spacial jumps to try and figure out time travel. And when I got to college, I minored in general relativity. It nearly blew my whole GPA but it was worth it. I don't even know if I got close." She let out a hollow laugh and turned to look at the boy, who was staring at her as if he'd never seen her before.

She gave him a 'really?' look. "What, you didn't think I'd do everything I could to get you home? I had a crap ton of yelling at you to do."

Wrenching his eyes away from her, he moved to the chalkboard where he (correctly) assumed her finished equations were. Looking at them closely, he said in a surprised sort of way, "I recognize these!" He began to point to some. "Here, and here—" He turned her in shock. "You're actually on the right track!"

She grinned at him. "See? So I do believe that you went into the future." She glanced at the chalkboard again before she looked at the boy— old man?— and said, "you don't have to do this on your own, you know." She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I'm here to help."