Rachel waited just outside the Meritech building for Klaus and Five to come back, hopefully with the information they wanted. A teenager standing outside the building drew attention from a few of the workers, but she just smiled and pretended to check the time on the clock in the lobby as if she were waiting on someone who worked there. When the two she was truly waiting on came back, her jaw dropped. Klaus came out thrilled while Five's brow was furrowed.

"I was pretty good, though, right? 'Yeah. What about my consent, bitch?'"

"What in the world happened to the two of you?!" she asked.

Klaus had a bleeding gash on the right side of his forehead. He was slightly wet, and glitter was sprinkled sporadically over his right shoulder. Five had clearly been punched in the lip as it was swollen, and a bit of blood was coagulating in the left corner of his mouth.

"What happened is that I got him to do what we wanted!" Klaus crowed.

"Klaus, it doesn't matter," Five told him.

"What? What? What? What's the big deal with this eye, anyway?"

"There is someone out there who's going to lose an eye in the next seven days," Five informed him, "They're gonna bring about the end of life on this Earth as we know it."

Klaus took a breath and then dismissed that information.

"Yeah, can I get that twenty bucks, like, now, or what?"

"Your twenty bucks?"

"Yeah, my twenty bucks."

The apocalypse is coming, and all you can think about is getting high?"

"Well, I'm also quite hungry. Tummy's a-rumblin'."

He imitated a growling stomach with his mouth. Rachel was trying hard to remind herself that she liked Klaus, as right now he was being unhelpful.

"You're useless," Five told him," You're all useless!"

"Oh, come on. You need to lighten up, old man."

Five went to sit on the stairs of Meritech. Rachel crossed her arms and sauntered over to him.

"I kind of told you to ask Allison."

"She'd be useless, too."

She turned to look at Klaus as he moved toward them.

"Hey, you know, I've just now realized why you're so uptight. You must be horny as hell!"

Five's eyes flicked between his brother and Rachel. Rachel's eyes widened, and she turned away from them, pretending she couldn't hear.

"Oh, boy…" she mumbled.

"All those years alone with just Rachel," Klaus soothed," It's gotta screw with your head. Unless you were screwing with her…"

"Well…We weren't alone."

With that simple sentence from Five, Rachel's back stiffened. She immediately shut down being able to feel emotions. She didn't want to pry into that complicated bag of feelings.

"Oh? Pray tell."

"Her name was Dolores. We were together for over thirty years."

"Thirty years? Oh, wow! God, the longest I've been with someone was…I don't know, three weeks. And that's only because I was so tired of looking for a place to sleep."

Rachel suddenly turned, feeling a hand on her leg before she was suddenly in the backseat of a taxi. Her head hit the top of the car as she had been standing when they jumped.

"Ow!" she protested.

The taxi driver looked back at them in shock.

"Don't stop," Five told him," Just keep going."

Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel saw Five saluting his brother as they drove past him. Letting out a breath, the girl just fell back into the seat and looked out to her left as the landscape passed by. Five settled in beside her.

"We're going to get Dolores right now, aren't we?"

The car was quiet, which was obviously a 'yes.'

"I'm sorry if I made you feel bad."

Rachel rolled her head to her right to look at Five.

"Why would I feel bad? How would you explain to your brother that you were in a polyamorous "relationship" with a me and a mannequin for over thirty years? One where the main partner for you is a mannequin and I was…used. That would sound crazy. Imagine if Klaus realized I was the one who was going crazy feeling...anyway, I do love how you chose to explain about Dolores instead of just saying you were with me. Way to make it stranger once they meet her."

Her words trailed off with a sigh. Rachel felt her breathing getting irregular, so she purposefully took deep breaths. Closing her eyes, she focused on the inhalation and then the exhalation, nothing else. She felt fingers interlace with hers, causing her to open her eyes again and look over at Five. He squinted his eyes at her.

"You weren't used. Let me remind you, I'd be celibate without your prompting."

"Accurate, but also not the point. I'm not…I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, Five. I know getting stuck in the future weighed on you…a lot. I'm not rocking the boat about that. You do what you need to. I care about you too much to force you to drop Dolores after all these years. She is your crutch and you're mine, that is simply my life. And I happen to like that Dolores ends up agreeing with me a lot."

Five rubbed his forehead, which made her let out a soft laugh.

"I know I haven't made things easy. In fact, I'm great at complicating situations. And we definitely need to talk about this. When there is time," he told her.

Rachel nodded at him. That might actually be never. They spent 45 years barely talking about their feelings. What was another eight days?

"Sure…"

After about a five-minute drive, Rachel was confused as they stopped near what looked like a park.

"This isn't Gimbel Brothers," she said to Five.

He looked at her in mock surprise.

"Really? Come on."

She followed him out of the taxi as he paid the driver. She was concerned as the driver took off.

"So, we are walking the rest of the day?"

Five shrugged.

"Gimbel Brothers is close to here. Also keeps the driver from trying to figure out how we appeared in his car if we are gone by the time he can come back with anyone."

Rachel nodded.

"Fair point."

Five led her across the street from where she had been looking. Taking a good look at the area, she realized they were in front of a cemetery. Rachel turned to Five, who stood with his hands in his pockets.

"You wanted to visit them…so here they are."

A chill ran through the girl's body. Five could clearly read fear in her eyes.

"I don't want it to be true," she whispered to him.

Taking a hand out of his pocket, the boy reached out and took one of hers. He began leading her into the cemetery.

"You wanted confirmation. You won't be able to get that by staying away. I promised we'd go together, so let's go. I'm right here, you don't need to worry."

Vanya's book had conveniently labeled at which lot on the grounds to find the headstones for Rachel's parents. When they found them, Rachel just stared at the stone slabs in front of her. Both died in 2005, buried together just as they had died. Rachel knelt down between their graves and placed her hand on each one.

"I'm sorry you couldn't find me. I wish…I wish you'd waited for me. Or moved on with your lives."

Rachel sat there for so long that the sun began to set. Five didn't say anything, nor did he push her to hurry up. He just stood by her, close enough so that she could always feel that he was there by her side. Eventually, she got up and looped her arm around Five's.

"They killed themselves hoping to see me again…" she murmured to him," I can't…imagine how it must feel to be a parent. To lose your only child. I'll never understand…"

Five looked down at her as she watched the stones.

"At least you know they loved you."

"I could have just run off. They could have waited. Choosing to die together is…It makes me feel like I killed them. They could still be alive and waiting for me. I could…could have gone home to them. Father would have understood and helped…God, I can't tell if I'm angry or sad. But I'm glad I saw the graves. It makes it feel like reality now. Thank you, Five."

She leaned up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Yeah…of course."

As they began walking, Rachel reached out to sense feelings in the area. She didn't want to say anything, but her suspicions were correct. Five felt guilty, feeling as if taking her into the future instead of returning her home was all his fault. It began to rain slightly as she squeezed Five's arm.

"I'm glad you weren't stranded alone in the future, you know," she told him.

Five gave her an confused look.

"That's an odd thing to say suddenly."

"I just mean…our lives could have certainly gone different ways. Plenty of what ifs and regrets, sure. I just…wanted you to know that I don't regret grabbing your jacket and I don't regret being stuck with you because…I feel like being alone there would have been so much worse for you. Less annoying and certainly more resources, but I hate to think how you would feel if you were all alone by yourself. Dolores is fine company and smart as a whip, but don't you feel the same?"

Instead of answering, Five stopped their walk. There in the sunset, he turned and tugged her closer. His hands went to her face as he kissed her. His emotions slammed into her in a jumble that she was too preoccupied to dissect. The kiss lasted only a moment before he pulled away and cleared his throat.

"I am glad I wasn't alone…Now…stop sensing my feelings and let's get going. And don't tell Dolores I love you."

Rachel laughed softly, doing as he asked. He sometimes said that line about Dolores when saying it outright felt too embarrassing for him. There was no way Dolores wouldn't know in all those years. If she were sentient, anyway. As they walked on, she licked her lips and tasted the iron from Five's cut.

"You know, you never did tell me why you walked out of Meritech with a bloody lip."

"It was both brilliant and idiotic."

They walked the way to Gimbel Brother's while Five recounted Klaus's insanity while pretending to be his father.