▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅

❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ
ʟɪᴋᴇ ʜᴏᴍᴇ ꒱


❝ I WAS GOING THROUGH
TEENAGE HORMONES! ❞

▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅

Luther and Diego laid the two teens down on the bed. The second they were released from the older Hargreeves' grasp, the two found each other again. Dolores wrapped her arms tightly around the boy as she curled up and relaxed against him. The brothers stared at the younger two, taking in how their brother subconsciously tucked Dolores' head underneath his. One of his hands cradled against her dark hair to protect her head while the other wrapped securely around her.

"I don't know how she stands him," Diego observed, "he's always such a prick."

"Well, their attitudes match perfectly," Luther said in an irritated tone.

His brother smirked. "You don't like her calling you out on your stupidity, do you?"

"They'll both be back to their normal, unpleasant selves in no time."

"Yeah, I can't wait that long. I need to find out what their connection is with these lunatics before someone else dies."

"All that stuff he was saying before. . . what d'you think he meant by that?"

Diego glanced up suddenly as noises from above caught his attention. Listening closely, they could hear footsteps approaching and the two brothers looked at each other. The dark-haired man pulled out one of the many knives he kept on his person. Creeping quietly towards the door, he cracked it slightly and took aim.

"You throw another one of those goddamn knives at me, I'm pressin' charges!" a man's voice complained.

"What do you want, Al?"

"I ain't your secretary," the older man said sternly.

"Yeah."

"Some lady called for you, said she needs your help."

"What lady?" Diego asked.

"I dunno. Some, uh, detective. I think she said her name was, uh, Blotch or somethin'."

"Patch?" Al gave a noncommittal shrug. "She needs your help. She needs you to meet her at a motel, that dump on Calhoun."

"When?" he demanded.

"About half an hour ago. Uh, said she found your brother and some wife."

The two Hargreeves looked at each other, then at Five and Dolores. "Well, that makes no sense," Diego said, and then realization hit them. "Klaus."

"Go, I'll wait here with—" Luther started, but his brother was already gone. Wife still didn't make sense, seeing as Five was the only married one— as strange as that was— and Dolores was right in front of him. She was no concern of his, though, so he quickly dismissed the thought.

✧✧✧

Five was the first to wake in the unfamiliar surroundings, the only thing he recognized being Dolores' comfortable weight against him. As he grew more aware of the setting, though, he noticed Luther's obnoxiously large frame pacing around the dingy room. The boy sat up slowly as to not wake his wife and carefully maneuvered her head so that it rested in his lap as he ran his fingers soothingly through her dark hair. Luther— unfortunately— noticed his movements and his attention snapped towards the bed. 

"Oh, good, you're awake." He pulled a nearby chair over and continued without bothering to lower his voice: "now you can explain what the hell is going on."

Five gave a quiet, long-suffering sigh, knowing that Dolores— if she were awake— would encourage him to share. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"When's it supposed to happen?" Luther asked with a deep breath. "This. . . apocalypse."

"I can't give you the exact hour but from what I could gather, we have four days left."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" he demanded.

The boy shook his head and glanced down at the dark-haired girl. "It wouldn't have mattered."

"Of course it would!" Luther immediately countered, "we could've banded together and helped you try to stop this thing."

"For the record, you already tried," Five admitted quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"I found all of you," he whispered, forcing himself to focus on the feeling of Dolores' silky hair running through his fingers to keep grounded to the present. "Your bodies." It was the one thing he never explicitly told her.

Luther stared at him. "We die?"

"Horribly," he murmured, "you were all together, trying to stop whoever it was that ends the world."

As if sensing the uncomfortable turn the conversation was taking, the girl shifted in his lap. Her expression scrunched slightly as new memories continued to filter in through her dreams. Five gently brushed his fingers against her cheek to reassure her that he was there.

"How do you know that?" his brother asked.

The boy reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out the prosthetic eye. "This was clutched in your dead hand when I found you." He tossed it to the larger man. "You must've ripped it out of their head right before you went down."

"Whose head?"

"Like I said, I don't know."

"Well, there's a serial number on the back. Think maybe you could—"

"No that's a dead end," Five cut him off. He was grudgingly willing to share some information, but not everything. "It's just another hunk of glass."

The door banged open suddenly as Diego stormed in, the loud, sharp sound startling Dolores awake as she jerked upright. Her eyes widened and face paled as she clamped her hands over her ears. Diego paid her no mind as he marched toward the boy. "Piece of shit! Do you have any idea what you just did?"

Luther stepped in front of him, effectively blocking his path as he lifted his brother off his feet. "Get your ape hands off me!"

"I can do this as long as it takes for you to calm down," Luther said mildly, his grip tightening.

Five ignored his brothers and instead turned to the startled brunette. Placing a hand on her arm, he gently tugged on it until she lowered her hands from her ears, still looking as if she'd been jolted out of a memory. "Dolly?" he prompted softly, encouraging her attention to focus on him.

The second her eyes found his, the girl instantly relaxed. The drawn expression her face wore smoothed out as she leaned forward to sink against his chest, her arms wrapping around him.

"Now, wanna tell us what you're talking about?" Luther asked after he'd put the other man down.

"Our brother has been pretty busy since he's gotten back," Diego ground out. "He was in the middle of that shoot out at Griddy's and then at Gimbel Brother's after the guys in masks attacked the Academy, looking for him."

"None of which is your concern," Five answered coldly, his arms still wrapped tightly around his wife.

"It is now," Diego declared, "they just killed my friend."

"Who are they, Five?" Luther asked.

"They work for my former employer, The Handler. She sent them to stop me. Then, as soon as Diego's friend got in their way," he shrugged. "Well, fair game."

"And now they're my fair game," the man growled out, "and I'm gonna see to it they pay." He spun around and headed for the stairs.

"That would be a mistake, Diego," Five called after him, "they've killed people far more dangerous than you."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," was his only response before he slammed the door shut, causing the brunette to flinch again.

"Former employer? What's this really about? And don't give me any of this 'it's none of your business' crap, alright?"

"Give us a minute, would you?" the boy asked testily as he glanced down at the girl. Luther's eyes narrowed but he didn't protest.

Once he was gone, Five pulled away slightly from the girl to try and gauge how she was feeling. Dolores reluctantly let go of the boy. She sat up properly and brushed her hair back into place to occupy her hands as they sat in silence for a moment, though Five's eyes never left her.

"How are you feeling?" the question tentative, as if he wasn't sure that was the appropriate thing to ask.

Dolores frowned, trying to take stock of everything her mind was trying to process before answering, "like a computer, I think."

"Huh?"

She allowed herself a small smile at the inarticulate response. "I've got nineteen tabs open, three are frozen and I have no idea where the music is coming from." She sighed. "There's a lot going on in my head right now. I think we really messed up the timeline."

Well, obviously, was his first response, but Five managed to swallow it back with effort. Even with his limited understanding of emotions, he knew sarcasm wasn't going to help. So, instead, he asked, "what's the original version of you doing?"

The brunette furrowed her brows, concentrating past the sharp ache in her head— both from the alcohol and new memories— to the scenes that had formed while she'd been sleeping. "I'm with Klaus," she started slowly, "there's. . . a lot of loud noise. Guns, I think. It's hot and humid." Then, her face screwed up as he hands went to her stomach. "Oh, god, I think I'm gonna be sick."

In a flash of blue, Five returned with a waste bin and carefully pulled her hair away from her face as the girl clutched at the sides of the container, hacking unpleasantly as the smell of blood lingered in her memories. While she hadn't actually consumed any solid food since the week started, she was still glad for the bin and wiped her mouth when she recovered. She was still pale and slightly shaky as she tried to joke: "I would never get up to this much trouble. Klaus is a terrible influence."

"That was because of blood, right?" the boy questioned her, too worried about her wellbeing to acknowledge her humor.

"Yeah," the brunette said with a wince. "I still can't process the details. Everything feels extremely loud and incredibly close all at once. It's like I'm trying to process months of memories in the span of minutes."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Dolores' expression softened, knowing how much her discomfort made him want to do something about it (just like his did for her), but she truly didn't think there could be anything except for waiting it out and— "Could you hold my hand?"

Five gave her a slightly surprised look before he immediately reached over to intertwine their fingers. As was tradition, three squeezes followed soon after.

"You know you don't have to ask, Dol."

She gave him a faint smile. "I know." Her attention turned to the waste bin and she grimaced. "I'm sorry, that was probably not very attractive."

He mirrored her expression and forced himself to try to relax by joking: "well, it's a good thing I didn't marry you for your appearance."

Dolores' mouth dropped open in mock offense as she stared at him in shock. "Excuse you, but I happen to be very good looking!"

"Oh yeah? Says who?"

She huffed. "My husband. Or at least I thought he had."

The boy scoffed. "You said that about me."

The girl turned pink. "Shut up. I was going through teenage hormones!"

"So you don't think I'm attractive anymore?"

She opened her mouth to protest until she caught sight of the smug look on the boy's face. "Oh, so now you're fishing for compliments?"

"I don't need to fish for them, Dol, if you give them to me willingly."

She glared at him, though there was no real heat in her expression as she hit him three times on the shoulder. The boy ducked out of the way as she grumbled out, "shut up." He laughed, trying to use his arms to block her blows.

When she finished, the boy sobered quickly. "Luther's waiting outside."

Dolores sighed. "Can't we just leave him there?"

He sent her a faintly amused look. "I wish, but weren't you the one telling me to get help from my siblings?"

"Not him."

"Well, he's the only one we've got right now."

✧✧✧

"They turned me into the perfect instrument for rehabilitation of the time continuum or 'corrections' as they called them," Five explained to Luther shortly after that. "I wasn't the only one. There were others like me. Beings out of time, fractured, extracted from the lives that they knew. I don't know how they got there but I do know that none of them were as good as me." He paused, comforted by the feeling of Dolores' hand in his. "They didn't realize it, but I was biding my time, trying to figure out the right equation so I could get back. If I could just get back, I knew I could stop the apocalypse, save the world. So I— we— broke our contracts."

"Our?" Luther repeated, looking at the brunette suspiciously.

"Dolores worked there too. Not in the field," he added quickly.

"Case management," was the girl's explanation, which didn't really clear things up for Luther.

He turned to his brother. "So, you were a hitman?"

"Yes."

Dolores could see the contention on the man's face and could guess what he was going to say before he even spoke. "I mean, you had a code, right? You didn't just kill anybody?"

"No code," the boy answered bluntly, "we took out anyone who messed with the timeline."

"What about innocent people?"

"It was the only way I could get back here," Five said defensively.

"But that's murder!"

Dolores scoffed. "Jesus, Luther, grow up. We're not kids anymore. There's no such thing as good guys or bad guys. There's just people, going about their lives." Her words quieted at the end of the sentence as she remembered the echo that came from them, of her uncle telling her that in what seemed like another lifetime.

"When the world ends, all those people die," Five continued, "including our family. Time changes everything."

✧✧✧

Klaus and Lola reappeared in the same setting in which they'd left 2019.

The abrupt change of surroundings was shocking and it took a several moments for the brunette to adjust. She sat rigidly in the plastic chair that lined the side of the bus as she stared blankly out at nothing. Klaus was in a far worse state than she was, still reeling from the loss of his lover. The briefcase that had taken them to the past was gripped tightly in his bloody hands as he, too, stared sightlessly ahead.

As the new settings slowly sank into her consciousness, Lola leaned against the older man's arm to try and comfort him, but she knew that anything she tried would fall far, far too short. She closed her eyes and let the relative silence of the bus ride wash over her. In all her years of living, she'd never realized how quiet her city was.

It was as noisy as most, with the constant sound of cars and people traffic, but compared to Vietnam, it was absolutely serene. There were no constant explosions or loud shouts of soldiers, there was no frequent threat of death or smell of blood. A random bus felt positively safe and Lola promised herself she would never take that feeling for granted again.

Next to her, she felt Klaus break down. The sobs wracked his body as he cried and her heart broke for him. While she didn't know what romantic love was herself, she was not lacking in empathy for those who'd lost a loved one and, as she'd gotten to know Klaus, she knew he didn't have many so any loss was a major blow.

Reaching up slightly, she wrapped her arms around his and hugged his arm to her until the bus slowed to a stop. Supporting the older man, the two made an ungraceful departure from the vehicle as they stumbled out onto the street, his weight unusual and top-heavy on her small frame. The man pulled away from her and tripped forward to slam the time-travelling device on the ground in anger and loss. Lola watched him silently, knowing better than to interfere.

She flinched slightly as a gust of fire exploded from the briefcase, but otherwise remained still, even as Klaus screamed his grief into the streets. She watched silently as he fell to his knees on the stone and he collapsed onto his side when he couldn't support himself.

The brunette wondered what sort of picture they made to other pedestrians. A middle-aged, dark-haired man who'd so obviously seen better days, sinking onto the ground in grief after destroying a normal-looking briefcase. A young girl who, by all means, should be in school, but was gaunt and thin with haunted eyes who had seen more in ten months than what anyone her age had probably ever had. No one paid them any mind, though. No one glanced their way, wondering what had caused such a scene. They just kept walking, too caught up in their own business to spare a glance at two strangers.

The world was far colder than she'd ever realized.

✧✧✧

Eventually, the pair had the regained enough sense to start walking. Lola fiddled with her fingers as they made their way to an unknown destination, her gaze trained on the ground as she mulled over how to say that she wanted her parents. What came out was: "I want to go home."

There was no response.

"I need my parents," she tried again, her voice still quiet. "They'll be worried about me."

Klaus stared at her uncomprehendingly.

Finally, she forced out the question she didn't want to ask: "can I leave?"

Klaus' first instinct was to protest. He'd already lost Dave, he didn't want to lose the only other person who seemed to care about him. Still, he'd lost Dave. He didn't deserve— "you don't need my permission, Jellybean." His voice sounded terribly hollow and far away, as if someone— perhaps a ghost— was using it.

Lola gave the man a concerned look. "I don't want to leave you, though." She knew him well enough that he wouldn't cope well with the loss. After all, who would?

"I can manage on my own," was his careless response.

The brunette sighed. She longed to go home, to take a shower, to return to the safety of her parents, but she knew from that answer alone that she shouldn't. No one should grieve on their own, after all— especially not Klaus. Besides, she looked terrible. She wasn't ready to explain to her parents why she looked like she'd aged ten years, why her clothes were completely different than when they'd last seen here, where she'd been for however much time had passed.

Lola was entirely too tired to do that much explaining— and to deal with her mother's overbearingness— in her present frame of mind. She was, quite frankly, still processing everything and she didn't know if she would ever finish completely. 

Nothing else was said on the topic and soon the gates of the Academy came into view, so familiar and yet oddly foreign at the same time.

✧✧✧

Lola waited for Klaus to get out of the bathroom feeling strangely out of place in a boy's— man's— room, even after everything that had happened. A part of her was still a fifteen-year-old girl, after all. She sat primly on his bed, half-afraid of touching anything. Had she come here before Vietnam, she would have been curiously exploring every part of the room. Now, she couldn't even be bothered and was, in fact, slightly wary of what Klaus could be hiding.

The man returned not long after with a towel wrapped around his waist. Lola closed her eyes for a moment to allow him to change before she opened them again. Months spent in a soldier's camp had not truly ridded her of propriety, especially for someone she knew.

They spent the time in complete silence, neither willing to talk about all they'd experienced. Instead, Lola tried to process as best she could while she suppressed the more terrifying memories. It was only a gentle knock on the door that brought her back to the present, and when her gaze focused on the intruder, her eyes widened slightly.

"You okay?" the boy asked softly, only noticing his brother for the moment.

"Hey. Yeah, I just. . . long night."

"More than one, from the looks of it," he remarked.

"Yeah," the man answered as he pulled on a shirt.

"Don't remember the dog tags."

"Yeah, they belong to a friend," Klaus said, holding them in his hands with a look of sadness evident on his face.

Lola finally found her voice again, though it was quiet as she asked, "you're Five?" remembering Klaus' descriptions and Vanya's book. The boy turned his eyes on her and they widened as he shifted slightly in the doorway, seemingly to block something.

"Well, shit."