Chapter Text
One moment they’re fighting the Commission, the next there’s a flash of blue, a whoosh of intense vertigo, and silence. Allison blinks as she looks around, trying to get her bearings over the sudden change. Luther towers next to her, looking around just as confused as she is. She holds her breath for another few seconds but none of the rest of their siblings appear with them.
Looks like it’s just the two of them, here.
Wherever here is.
Here is a wreck. Decrepit ruins of former buildings surround them, bricks and debris crowding into what used to be a street. Blackened beams are still visible from what must have been an intense fire that ravaged this block. Abandoned, rusty cars poke out among the bricks and broken glass. Whatever it was must have happened a while ago, as plants have started poking through gaps in the asphalt and vines twine their way up the few walls and columns still standing. The air is dusty and heavy. The sun beats down on them. It smells weird.
“Where are we?” Luther asks, deep voice cutting through the silence. Allison didn’t realize how intense the silence was until Luther broke it. There is nothing. No sounds of people, no animals scurrying through the debris, no birds calling from the sky.
Where did the Commission send them?
“I have no idea,” she says. She almost whispers it. It feels wrong to interrupt the quiet. She exchanges a worried look with Luther. He shrugs. Cautiously, they begin picking their way down the street. Might as well see if they can find anyone to tell them where the hell they are and what happened. Their footsteps reverberate through the empty street. Allison is glad for the small mercy that at least she’s wearing practical shoes and was dressed for their fight with the Commission. Heels would be murder here.
They walk for almost half an hour and all they find is more destruction. It’s like an entire city was demolished, gutted. Allison starts studying the wreckage around them for any clues as to what happened. As her eyes adjust to the glare of the sun, it gets easier to pick out details. Details like corpses. Everywhere. Many have decomposed down to the bone, skeletal hands and skulls sticking out around piles of bricks. Others are mummified, expressions taut and horrified from dried muscles pulling back their skin, still sitting in their cars like they’re just driving home from work.
“Do you think we need to worry about radiation?” Luther asks as they both quickly look away from a woman and her baby in the back of a taxi.
Allison shakes her head, eyes closed against the dead baby. Claire is fine Claire is fine Claire is fine. “I don’t think so,” she manages to choke out. “And if it is, it’s not like there’s anything we can do about it.” They’re stuck here with no protection. If there is radiation along with all the dust, well. She chooses to not think about that.
They walk some more. There’s not much else for them to do. Allison’s hopes of finding someone who can help them dwindle with every step. Her mouth is dry and tacky from breathing in the dusty, hot air. She would kill for some water right now. But all there is around them is more destruction and more bodies. The only other movement comes from bugs. Cockroaches skitter over the mummified corpses. Small beetles flee to cover as they kick aside debris.
Luther suddenly freezes and she almost runs into him. She glances up with a frown. His eyes are wide and his mouth is a thin line, distressed. He slowly points in front of him. Allison looks.
There’s a red wagon parked halfway down the block from them, left by a massive mound of rubble that blocks off most of the street. A pile of miscellaneous bits of wood, some cans, and dirty cloth is stacked inside. A large canteen is tucked into the side. That’s not what caught Luther’s attention, though. Allison inhales sharply.
There’s half a mannequin carefully balanced on top of the haul. Its single arm gestures elegantly to the devastation around them. There’s a wide sunhat on its bald head and it wears a dusty red sweater, empty sleeve carefully looped around its torso so as not to catch on anything.
“Delores,” Luther whispers.
They know where they are.
In the ever-present silence, there’s a soft clatter of rock being disturbed. It’s startling after the nothing of before. A voice floats over to them, scratchy and hoarse, “…we’ve been through here before but we always miss stuff, you know that. And no point in wasting a trip not looking. Remember last time? We found those antibiotics. They came in handy. And here! Look! The wood must have rotted enough to shift this rock…”
A figure appears from around the side of the rubble. Allison forgets to breathe. The man is obviously and impossibly thin. Even from this distance she can see how his battered jacket and pants practically hang off of him. He’s wearing a dirty and stained bucket hat on his head to block the sun and a bandana wrapped around his face, obscuring most of it. Goggles hang around his neck. His boots are tall and incredibly worn.
It doesn’t matter that he’s completely covered, that she can’t see his face. There’s only one person this can be.
Five.
Five keeps chattering to Delores as he pokes around the debris pile, throwing a chunk of wood to his wagon. A constant monologue. Luther is still frozen next to her, staring at their brother. Allison holds her breath, waiting for Five to notice them.
The seconds stretch on into minutes. Five continues talking to himself, paying them no mind. Luther glances down at her, question clear in his expression. She looks back up at him, just as helpless. She has no idea if they should interrupt Five or not. What the consequences of that would be for future Five, their Five.
Although, they don’t actually have many other options. They know Five is literally the only other person here. There is no one else who can help them. And judging on the state of things around her, they are years into the apocalypse, maybe even decades. Five would have honed survival into an art by this point. They won’t last long on their own. And they just need to last long enough for Five, their Five, to find where they are and scoop them out.
She refuses to think about any alternative to that.
Looking back up at Luther, she can tell he’s come to the same conclusion. She shrugs. He firms his jaw before looking back over at their brother. “Hey, Five!” he calls. His voice is once again shocking in the quiet.
Five freezes for a moment, breaking his monologue, before he goes back to poking through the debris and talking to himself. Luther frowns and starts walking over. Allison follows, a few feet behind. “Five!” Luther calls again.
As they get closer, Five’s mumblings get easier to hear. “…of course I see them. You know I can’t interact with them. I don’t care if it would be nice. It’s pretend. I can’t afford to distract myself like that. You remember how that worked out that one winter. Stop, no. You’re not like that, Delores, you know that. You’re safe. I won’t forget with you–“
“Five?” Allison tries, interrupting him. He resolutely ignores them, getting more agitated as he digs through some bricks to pull out a long scrap of cloth.
“It makes sense I’d see them over here, we’re close to there. I should have expected this. It’s ok though. I know. I know! They’ll go away. They always do. I just have to keep focused. What do you mean they look different? No, I’m not going to look, that’s a terrible idea.” Five jerkily scratches at his nose as he talks to Delores and keeps his back to them.
They’re only a few feet away. Luther stops again, unsure what to do. Allison doesn’t know either. Five obviously thinks they’re a hallucination, which honestly is a fair assumption to make when he knows they’re dead and he’s the only person on Earth at the moment.
Now that they’re right next to him, it’s easy to see how small he is. Their current Five, stuck at thirteen, is tiny. This Five isn’t all that much bigger. He’s grown a few inches, but he's still maybe an inch shorter than Allison is, now. He is so, so skinny though. His hands are practically skeletal as he rummages around, his wrist bones jut out from where they peek under his sleeves.
Luther sighs deeply and slowly reaches out a hand. Allison doesn’t know if she should stop him or not. Carefully, gently, he rests his massive hand on Five’s slim shoulder. Five startles so hard he almost falls into the bricks. Space warps around him for a moment but it quickly fizzles out and he doesn’t go anywhere. He spins around, practically plastered against the wall of rubble and stares at them with wide, wild eyes, gasping for breath.
Five has always had an intense stare. It’s piercing and shrewd and makes people uncomfortable. This stare is that but turned up to an eleven. His green eyes flick between them, intense but with this… otherness to it. Allison doesn’t even know the word she wants to describe it, it’s just deeply off. Something missing. Luther takes a small step back at the force of it.
“How—why—wh—you—” Five stutters. He looks over at Delores and back to them.
Allison smiles the kindest smile she can manage. “Hey, Five. Good to see you.”
He pulls down his bandana to reveal a sloppily trimmed beard covering the deep hollows of his cheeks. Allison wants to cry at it. Five is old enough to grow a beard, here. He licks his cracked, chapped lips. His eyes still flicker between them. He looks at Delores, again. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he tells her. He glances at them and then immediately away, like he’s afraid to look but also afraid they’re going to disappear if he doesn’t.
“I know it’s a lot, Five,” Luther says slowly, “but we are really here. We can explain.”
Five turns to Delores. “They can’t be here. That doesn’t make any sense. I’m just—just—just extra dehydrated. I shouldn’t have skipped breakfast. I shouldn’t have come all this way in the middle of the day, it’s too hot. That’s the only explanation. You were right, I should have waited until a cloudy day. But it had been a while since I visited and this is what I get for not listening to you. Yes, I’m saying it so you won’t lord it over me for the next month. This is me saying you were right, I was wrong.” He’s slipped back into his constant chatter to Delores, the rhythm obviously familiar to him.
Allison interrupts him, “Is there somewhere we can sit and talk? We can explain everything. Or as much as we think we can without ruining your future.”
This catches his attention. She watches him silently debate himself for a moment as to whether or not keep talking to his probable hallucinations for more information. As she knew it would, his need for information wins out. “You know me? In the future? I get out?” His hoarse voice cracks painfully at the end.
“We do, Five. You figure it out,” Luther says gently.
Five rubs a hand roughly along his jaw as he thinks about that. It rasps against his choppy beard in the quiet. He’s so close to believing them, he just needs a final push. Carefully, Allison holds out a hand and waits. Five stares at the offered hand for a long moment. Slowly, gaze flickering between her hand and her face like this is a trick, he reaches his own thin hand out.
He flinches back slightly when he makes contact but instantly reaches out again. Rough, calloused fingers ghost over her hand. Allison waits patiently. Five’s expression flickers, emotions flashing over it. He looks up to meet her gaze. “You are here,” he whispers. She smiles and nods, still not moving. Immediately, Five grasps her hand in an iron grip, almost painful in how tight it is. He stares at them in hungry wonder.
“Is there a shadier spot we can sit and talk in?” Allison asks after a long moment. Five blinks and looks around them, not letting her hand go.
He clears his throat, “Yeah, yeah. Sure. There’s um. Over here.” He glances between Allison’s hand and Delores and after a moment he slowly releases her hand so he can pick up Delores. With her cradled in his arms, he leads them around the mountain of rubble. He keeps looking over his shoulder in wonder, delighted every time they’re still there and haven’t disappeared in the wind.
After a short walk, he stops in front of what obviously used to be a café. The wrought iron tables and chairs still stand on the mostly clear sidewalk, shaded by its tattered awning. Five lovingly places Delores on one of the chairs, adjusting her hat and retucking her sleeve out of the way before taking a seat himself. Allison pulls one up across from him while Luther gingerly sits on another, wary if it will hold his weight or not.
“So, I do it. I figure it out,” Five says, not waiting for them to be settled before he starts talking. “This is good, I knew I could do it,” he tells Delores.
Allison hopes her smile doesn’t look as pained as it feels. Although, Five hasn’t seen another person make any expression in years so he probably wouldn’t be able to tell anyway. “You do!” she says. She does not say he’s probably decades away from it. Speaking of, how old is he…?
“How old are you, Five?” Luther asks, beating her to it.
He looks up at them from Delores, “Hm? Oh.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Twenty-four? Twenty-five? I’m pretty sure twenty-five. Definitely not twenty-six, not yet.” Allison closes her eyes against that answer. He still has thirty years to go here. Luther looks slightly constipated, trying to hide how much an emotional punch Five’s answer was.
Five immediately jumps to the most important question, the only one that really matters, “You’re here, so you can tell me. What causes it? What ends everything?” His intense gaze bores into them, slightly manic.
Allison exchanges a worried glance with Luther. She doesn’t know how much they can tell him. Five had hammered into them the dangers of messing with the timeline, their time in the sixties a prime example of how their (mostly) good intentions still destroyed everything. Allison is especially wary, here, because she desperately doesn’t want to ruin Five’s future escape. If he knows too much, the Commission might leave him here. And while he probably would figure out the math, judging by how thin he is now he won’t have the energy he needs to actually make the jump to get out and back to them. When future Five picks them up she’ll ask him if they can just tell this Five everything. It’s a compromise she has to make with herself to live with what she’s about to do.
“It’s hard to believe but it was Vik—” Luther starts.
“I don’t know if we can tell you,” Allison quickly interrupts, kicking Luther’s shin. He frowns at her. She ignores him. Five furrows his brow. “I’m worried if we reveal too much, we’ll change the timeline too much for you and ruin how you get out of here.”
Luther mutters a quiet, “Ah.”
Five works his jaw as he thinks about that. “That… makes sense. Time is fickle. And if I’m close to figuring out how to get out we should be wary of any big changes. I told you Rothstein’s was the right direction to go in. I know you think he’s too loose in his applications but the work underneath it is still valid, a good base. And looks like I was right!” He’s gone back to talking to Delores. He pulls his hat off as he mutters math at her so he can run a hand through his dirty hair while he thinks. It’s sloppily chopped short like his beard is, like he took a knife and just hacked at it because it was in his way. That’s probably exactly what he did.
“Tell me though,” he suddenly turns back to them and it takes Allison a moment to realize he’s talking to them again. He reaches into a pocket on his jacket and pulls out a small cloth. Carefully unwrapping it, he holds out Harold Jenkin’s eye. Luther inhales sharply at it. Its brown iris stares back at them, mocking. “You were holding this because it belongs to the person who ends the world, right? A hint isn’t too much. A hint won’t break anything. You can tell me that.”
Luther swallows and shoots a glance at Allison before he answers, “It belongs to the man who ends the world.” Allison nods. Five was already convinced of that when he arrived. This doesn’t change anything. And it’s not a lie, just not anywhere close to the whole truth.
It still feels like a dirty trick.
Five carefully wraps it back up mumbling, “I knew it. I knew it!” to himself.
As he tucks it back away, a thought obviously hits him and his whole face folds in distress. His gaze snaps up to them, “Wait, no, no, no, wait, wait – you two can’t be here. This is… this is bad. You shouldn’t be here, it’s not safe. It’s not good. No one should be here. You two, especially, you shouldn’t have to experience this, you don’t deserve that. How did you two get here?” The sudden emotional shift startles them both.
Luther glances at her. He’s letting her handle this one now she’s committed them to hiding everything from Five. Allison sighs as she thinks on how to phrase it. “There was… an accident. We were time traveling to… fix something, and Luther and I got misplaced.” She’s once again grateful Five hasn’t seen people in a decade and was shit at them to begin with because she’s doing an awful job controlling her expression as she makes up this lie. Some Hollywood actress she is. “So, it’s ok, it’s just a little hiccup for us. You don’t have to worry about us being stuck here. I don’t know how long we’ll be here with you, but future you will probably find us soon and take us back home.”
God, she really hopes that’s true.
Five relaxes as she reassures him, choosing to believe her. His eyes widen at the mention of his future self being here. “He could tell me how to do it. Delores, he could solve it all. We could leave by next week.” The hope on his face twists a knife into Allison’s gut. He’s flipping between emotions so quickly, she’s getting whiplash. She smiles weakly at him, unsure if she should pop his bubble or not. There is no way Five will help his past self out like that.
His face falls after moment as he thinks some more. “You’re right, Delores. I wouldn’t. To keep existing as things happened for him, he’d need me to do it the same way, figure it out myself. I obviously succeed, so we should be careful about altering things too much, Allison was right about that. Avoid a paradox.” Allison and Luther both grimace at that. They didn’t succeed. On their first try, anyway. They did succeed a smattering of years and three timelines later. Five works his jaw some more, eyes haunted. “That’s ok. I’m close. I can wait to get it right myself, even if it takes a few more years. We’ve got a system down, couple more years is nothing. We can do that. For my family. I can do that.”
Allison hugs herself. She feels like the worst sister in the world. Maybe they should just tell him everything. In her mind, Five’s voice, her Five, tells her very sharply to keep doing what she’s doing. The timeline depends on it.
She’s not sure if she should tell it to fuck off or not.
Luther and Allison sit in miserable silence while Five keeps chattering at Delores, combination making plans and talking about math at random. He talks constantly. She doesn’t know how he’s doing it when he hasn’t had anything to drink since they’ve run into him. Does explain the raspy, painfully hoarse quality his voice has, she supposes. He has a hard time regulating his volume, varying wildly between talking too quietly and too loudly.
She tries to see the Five she knows in this jabbering man in front of her. It’s hard. The only part of him she really recognizes is his nose, the slight curve to it. His eyes, almost, but there’s that vacancy to them, like he’s always looking just past them and doesn’t actually see them. He’s just so gaunt, his cheekbones stick out sharp and his eyes sit in dark hallows, half of his face hidden under his unkept beard. It makes it hard to match him to the thirteen-year-old face she knows so well.
This Five hasn’t been silent for longer than a minute, she thinks, constantly filling the empty quiet around him. She can’t imagine him being able to wait, patiently, for his target to appear so he can efficiently and ruthlessly off them, not with his constant fidgeting and talking. She also can’t picture him bodily taking down a room full of highly trained agents, and that’s something she’s seen their Five do multiple times. This Five is so thin, he looks like a stiff wind could blow him over. How did Five come out the other side of this, a mostly functional person and a hyper-successful assassin?
Eventually, sitting there watching him talk to Delores gets too depressing. “You said you were heading somewhere?” Luther asks. “We can go there with you.”
“You don’t need to see that,” Five answers immediately.
“We don’t mind. You said you hadn’t been there in a while and sounds like it’s a bit of a trek. We don’t want to waste your effort like that,” Allison says with a frown. What is he trying to hide from them?
Five exchanges a glance with Delores. Well, he looks at her. Delores stares in vaguely his direction, vacant and plastic as always. “Ok,” he says after a moment, surprising Allison. She was expecting an argument, or at least another long-winded answer. Five stands and carefully picks Delores up before heading back in the direction they came. Allison and Luther are left to scramble after him.