Five could hardly keep still. The savory smell wafting from his makeshift campfire was making his stomach squirm nonstop. He watched raptly as the small cracked-open can of soup began to bubble in the open flames. About twenty more cans were neatly sorted nearby - more soup, vegetables, fruit, and beans. In another pile were dust-covered bags of snack foods - chips, nuts, and the like.

For once, Five felt like he'd finally caught a break. Digging through the remains of the local corner store had resulted in his best score yet. The temptation to open more than one item had almost been too much for him; he'd hardly eaten since he'd arrived in this hell nine days ago. But he was determined to ration what little supplies he had. He couldn't afford to get greedy - not if he wanted to survive long enough to figure out how to get back.

But damn, he was hungry.

To distract himself from the ache in his gut, he tore his eyes away from the fire and surveyed his current setup. He was surrounded by a strange and not-at-all-homey assortment of items: a moveable chalkboard and some chalk that he'd salvaged from a school; a pack of batteries, a handful of plastic lighters, and a solar powered charger that he'd liberated from a gas station; some bandages, painkillers, and medical equipment courtesy of the nearest pharmacy; and any other useful items he'd collected over the past few days.

Strips of sunlight filtered in through the high openings in the concrete walls of the multi-level parking garage that had become his temporary home. The mostly underground structure was one of the few in the city that was still intact, and although it was open to the chilly breeze, it provided some shelter from the frequent thunderstorms that were typical of spring. The turbulent weather was ironically comforting to him, as it was one of the only things that seemed the same since before the incident.

April 1st, 2019. The day his life was forever changed - the day of the apocalypse.

That's what he could gather from the newspapers, anyway. It had to be the worst April Fools joke in history. Of course, it'd been November when he'd left, but that had been in 2002.

Only two weeks ago, he'd been living with his six siblings as a superhero who was adored by the general public - with a father who, despite being a hard-ass, always diligently educated them and provided for them. Now, stranded seventeen years in the future, he was completely alone, a teenager forced to live like a wild man, scavenging the ruins of his home for food and supplies.

Home.

Five stiffened as horrible images drifted into his mind: the mansion he grew up in reduced to rubble, and his adult siblings' bodies strewn across the wreckage like mistreated dolls on the floor of a toddler's bedroom. Those weren't the only bodies he'd come across, of course, but they were the ones he saw every night when he closed his eyes to sleep. He took a deep breath and wrapped his fingers around the glass eye in his pocket, clinging to his resolve.

I'll fix this. I'll make it back. And when I do, I'll stop the apocalypse and save them all.

The steady sizzling of the soup was enough to steer his thoughts back. With a stick, he carefully pushed the can out of the fire. Unfortunately, he knew he'd better wait for it to cool a bit before digging in. He was so hungry that he would've risked burning his mouth if only he'd had a spoon, but he figured trying to drink boiling soup out of a hot metal can would be more trouble than it was worth.

As soon as he'd maneuvered the can away from the flames, an odd noise reached his ears, and he paused to listen. The staggered crunching of gravel from the level above sounded unmistakably like footsteps. He'd encountered a few small creatures - mostly rats and roaches - but whatever this was, it sounded big. Goosebumps sprung up on his arms as the creak of a metal door echoed through the parking garage. It was the same creak he heard every time he returned from his daily scavenging trips; it was produced by the door to the exit stair on the ground floor, which was dented and barely hanging on its hinges.

Slowly, he stood and crept toward the solid concrete stair tower as the footsteps grew louder. It sounded like a person was coming down the stairs - but that was impossible. Five wondered if his hunger was making him imagine things. That seemed much more likely than someone surviving the terrible disaster that had leveled the entire city and quite possibly the entire country, judging by the bleak horizons and the amount of dust in the atmosphere.

As the door leading to his level of the parking garage was pulled open, Five raised his cheap gas station pocketknife. But when he caught sight of the intruder, he almost dropped his weapon in shock. Not only was it another living human being, it was someone he knew...well, sort of. His brother looked very different from how he remembered him, with his disheveled hair, lanky limbs, and stubbly beard. But what startled Five the most was that he'd seen this twenty-nine-year-old version of his brother once before - and this was the first time he was seeing him alive.

Klaus looked just as stunned as he was. He gaped at Five for a solid three seconds, like he couldn't understand what he was seeing. Those wide green eyes were the only part of him that looked exactly the same as when he was thirteen. After his initial shock, he rubbed his eyes and blinked. Then he turned away, shaking his head like he was exasperated. "So much for sobriety," he muttered to himself. He stopped and looked at Five again. "Hold on. Are you a hallucination, or are you dead?"

Before Five could come up with a response, Klaus added irritably, "And if you are dead - what the hell, Five? You'd have to have been dead for...fifteen, sixteen...no, seventeen years! And you wait until now to come see me, after the end of the world? Excellent timing, jackass! You could've stopped by a little earlier, don't you think?"

As Five continued to ogle him, half-amazed and half-afraid he was losing it, Klaus's expression morphed into a resigned one. He sighed and waved a hand, and Five caught a glimpse of the word HELLO tattooed on his palm. "Oh, well. Better late than never, I guess. Although if I were you, I would've stayed in the afterlife. Looks worse than hell here, at this point. But hey, if you want to stay and keep me company, be my guest. I haven't seen Ben since I woke up, so I could use someone to talk to." He hesitated, frowning at him. "Why aren't you saying anything?" Once again, he continued before Five could answer: "You're in my head, aren't you? Did I forget what you sound like...? Dammit. I knew that water tasted funny..."

"Klaus, shut up," Five inserted at last, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to process this.

"There it is!" Klaus said cheerily, like he'd been expecting that. Then he noticed the campfire and the collection of items. He furrowed his eyebrows and stared at Five in confusion. "Wait. If you're dead, how did you-"

"I'm not dead, you idiot. You're dead," Five snapped, frustrated with himself. He figured his mind must have been pretty desperate for company if it had concocted such an immature, talkative vision.

Klaus snorted. "I don't think it works like that, little bro. If you're gonna throw something back at me, it at least has to make sense."

"I saw your body!" Five argued, his voice cracking. "You were at the house with all the others! I checked your pulse! I checked all of your pulses!"

Klaus's demeanor changed completely. A pall seemed to fall over his lightheartedness, and his voice went low and sober. "I saw them too. The others, I mean. But I wasn't dead."

"Yes, you were!" Five insisted. As Klaus gave him a perplexed frown, he rubbed his temples and muttered, "I'm not going insane. I can't be going insane. It's only been nine days..."

"You know, I've come back from a lot of stuff before," Klaus offered. "I think I was just knocked out for a while. I must've gotten lucky." He made a wry face. "Or unlucky..."

"That's impossible. You weren't breathing. I...I waited there, with all of you," Five admitted. "I thought I could use my powers to go back. I stayed for a while, trying..."

Klaus's sympathetic expression faded into curiosity. "So, how long were you at the house? Did you see what happened?"

Five shook his head, pushing away the images again. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you. You aren't real."

"You said you were here for nine days, right?" Klaus continued in a puzzled tone, ignoring him. "That's how long ago I woke up. Were you...? Oh. Oh." His eyes went wide again. "Holy shit! Did you time travel to that day? Is this, like, a couple of weeks after the day you left, for you?"

"Shut up!" Five ordered again, refusing to look at him. "I don't need you here. Just leave me alone."

"I have a better idea." Five tensed as Klaus started walking toward him. On instinct, he raised his knife again, and his brother rolled his eyes. "Alright, Psycho. First off, you think I'm in your head, so what is stabbing me going to do? And what if I am real? Do you really wanna take that chance?"

Five swallowed and returned the knife to his pocket. "What's your idea?" He demanded.

Klaus answered by throwing his arms around him. The hug was awkward at first. This older version of Klaus was barely more than a stranger to Five, and their height difference meant that his face was level with his chest. He suspected Klaus felt the same hesitance, given that, for him, so much time had passed since they'd last seen each other. But the physical contact did the trick. As Five's ever-logical mind raced to find an explanation for the warmth that now surrounded him, he realized he could hear his brother's heartbeat, and his breath hitched.

Somehow, this was real. Klaus had survived the apocalypse. He wouldn't have to face this terrifying reality alone.

The realization made Five feel lightheaded, which he immediately blamed on his empty stomach. Before he really knew what he was doing, he was leaning into Klaus and shaking with the effort to contain the waves of emotion crashing over him. He blamed all that on the hunger too.

"You okay?" Klaus murmured uncertainly. At first, he'd been holding onto him with the diffidence of someone greeting a distant relative who they hardly ever saw. But when Five accepted the gesture, he tightened his grip to give him a proper hug.

"It's been a long week," Five mumbled into his shirt.

If Klaus heard the pathetic remark, he didn't acknowledge it. When he finally pulled away, he murmured, "You know, you're the last person I thought I'd see here - but I guess it makes sense. I always thought you were too stubborn to die stuck in another timeline. I figured you'd come back to rub it in dad's face once you mastered your powers."

Getting a grip on his emotions, Five scoffed, "Oh, I plan on it - and I'll save the world too, while I'm at it."

Klaus smiled wryly. "Business as usual, then?" His gaze drifted to the chalkboard, which was packed to the borders with scribbled calculations. "I'm guessing that's what all this gibberish is for...?"

"Exactly. Once I figure out how to travel back, we'll find what's going to cause the apocalypse and put a stop to it."

Klaus blinked. "Oh. Well, I can help with that second part."

Five stared at him in astonishment. "You know what caused the apocalypse?"

"Yeah. I mean, I was high for some of it, but I can fill you in on the main points..."

Five scowled, wondering why he ended up with this particular sibling. Then, on second thought, he realized that the others might not have been much better. Luther and Diego could be total meatheads. Allison tended to get distracted and miss the big picture. Victor was smart and patient, but too timid to take a stand and get things done. And Ben...well, Ben was the ideal choice. He was quick-witted, resilient, and a good listener - the perfect sounding board for ideas. But Klaus's comment about not seeing him, as if seeing him was a regular thing, had Five thinking that Ben might not have been an option. After all, he hadn't been able to find Ben's body with the others.

Suddenly, it occurred to Five that he might have access to all of his siblings. His focus snapped back to Klaus as he was rambling about some argument between Luther and Victor, which Five assumed was completely unrelated to the cause of the apocalypse. "Hold on, Klaus. Have you tried using your powers to call the others?"

Klaus winced. "Yeah, but no dice. I don't think I was sober enough at first, and lately I've been so hungry..." His hopeful eyes locked on the stack of cans.

Five sighed softly - but for the first time in the past nine days, he felt an urge to smirk. He pushed the already cooked soup can toward Klaus. "Here. You found me because you smelled this, didn't you?"

Klaus grinned - a surprising expression, given the circumstances. "Guilty. Thanks, little bro."

Five's smirk vanished as he glared at him. "Don't call me that. I don't care if you're almost thirty. I'm still mentally older than you."

"Mm-hmm." Klaus seemed too interested in his soup to argue.

As Five opened another can, he wondered about that big smile Klaus had worn a second ago. Two weeks ago, he might have dismissed the reaction as childishness, but after seeing this version of Klaus, he was starting to think that Ben wasn't the only resilient one.

Gazing pensively at his chalkboard, he had a feeling that there was a long and challenging road ahead. That much hadn't changed. But at least now he wouldn't have to figure it all out on his own.