When Elizabeth had first gotten to know Five she had loathed him. Deeply and for a long time. Because, although accidentally, he was the reason that she had been plugged from the time she rightfully belonged in, her family and her friends. Only to end up in a future were everyone, seemingly, besides them two was dead and the earth laid in ruins. Forced to remain and live in this endless hell.

The day it had happened had begun normally. Her mom had sent her out to buy some milk for breakfast. She had forgotten to buy some the day before and her little brother always had milk in the morning, either simply drinking a glass or in his cereal. So she went out, an errand that usually only took a couple minutes. They had a little store right across the street and a few houses down. Easy. She got into the store, took the milk, paid for it and stepped out. The next moment someone smacked right into her and they both fell over.

When she opened her eyes a dark haired, blue eyed boy around her age was staring down at her, shock and confusion in his eyes. But something else had been strange: when Elizabeth had stepped out of the house this morning it had been a typical, chilly autumn morning. But now the air around them was hot, heated up by a sun shining way more brightly than it had just a moment before. The boy above her got up from her, kneeling and looking around him. His face changed into an excited, arrogant expression, muttering "Not ready my ass."

Elizabeth noticed the clothes the boy was wearing and gasped. "You- you're from the Umbrella Academy!" Looking around her, seeing the changed surroundings she connected the dots. "You're Number Five! The one who can jump through space!" Then she hesitated. "But... we're still in the same spot... Only the time-"

"Only the time seems to have changed." He interrupted her, now standing and looking down at her. A huge, proud grin was adorning his face. "I knew I could do it! I'm so going to rub that into that old mans face." Elizabeths face fell into an annoyed expression. She didn't like the air of arrogance he was exuding. She slowly got up, picking up the plastic bag with the milk in it. "That's great and all, but you seem to have accidentally taken me with you." She looked at him. "Now, can you please take me back?"

He looked at her for a few moments, silently, the air of arrogance around him slowly thickening. "You know what? I don't wanna." He then said smugly. She stared at him, incredulously. "What do you mean 'you don't wanna'?" She asked. "You have to! I'm only here because of you!" Still, he grinned. "Come on!" he said, "I just discovered that I can actually do this... time jump. I want to see where else I can go." He thought for a moment. "Or should I say when else?" He shrugged. "Anyway, I don't want to go back yet, and if you're here anyway you can go with me." He grinned at her, reeking with arrogant self-confidence. He tried to take her free hand, but she avoided him.

"I don't want to. Now please bring me back!" She demanded now, but the boy only rolled his eyes. Then he simply grabbed her arm and started to walk fast, forcing her to come with him. The next moment Elizabeth was hit by an icy blast. "Ah, cold!" she cried out, blinking when she realized that, suddenly, it was winter around them. He chuckled. "Not for long. We just change to another time."

He suddenly stopped and Elizabeth walked right into his back. But the boy didn't even stumble. He just looked around them, seemingly shocked to his core. So she shifted her own gaze - and only now recognized that something was very, very wrong.

Everything - the buildings, streets, cars, trees - that just had been okay a moment before suddenly was utterly destroyed. The buildings seemed to have crumbled, cars were covered and crushed by rubble, here and there little fires were burning. The sky was clouded and grey from all the ash floating in the sky. It looked like a bomb had gone off or something. There were no people anywhere, besides them. She felt a heavy ice ball of fear drop into her stomach.

"H-hey." she shakily mumbled, grabbing the sleeve of the boy before her. "What... happened here?" He shook his head. "I-I don't know." Then he lifted his hands, clenching them both into fists. "Grab my arm." He urged. "I'm taking us back." She did just that and she could see a blue light surround his fists - but nothing happened. They were still standing in the rubble. "No," he gasped and tried again. Nothing happened. "No!" He then shouted, trying and failing again. He let his arms slowly sink, whispering "I...I can't." He turned around, looking at her. "I... can't take us back."

.

.

The first time Five had seen Elizabeth he had felt very strange all of a sudden.

It had been a bit over a year before that fateful day, when he and his siblings, once again, had sneaked out of the house and went to their favorite place in all of the city: Griddy's, a little doughnut shop. This shop had been their only relief in that endless training hell they had to endure at home. Their dad was away on some business, and their mom, as well as Pogo, were not allowed to leave the house. So they were pretty safe out here. The siblings sat together in a booth, eating a huge amount of the sugary treats they had bought with their pocket money and nursing on entirely too sweet milkshakes. More sweets than they were ever allowed at home.

That's when she came in.

She was no exotic beauty, nor was she the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Though calling her ugly would have been a gross insult also, in his opinion. She seemed to be around his age, with blond hair, wearing a skinny jeans and a T-shirt, a backpack hanging on her shoulders. Considering the time of the day she was probably fresh out of school and on her way home, having popped into the store for some doughnuts or something to drink. She looked around the room, as if searching for something or someone, and when her brown eyes briefly connected with his own gaze she gave him a quick, tiny smile. Something in his chest had constricted in that very moment.

She went to the counter, sitting down on a barstool and starting a conversation with Agnes, the owner of the shop, who she seemed to know. The whole time she was there he was hyper aware of her. And he didn't understand why. Didn't understand why his ears always picked up what she was saying even though he could easily tune out every one else, why he perked up when he heard her laugh or why his eyes always seemed to flit over to her, even when he tried not to. Only when she had left was he able to calm down again.

From then on it was like he had to seek her out everywhere.

He noticed that she was living in the same street as him and his family and that he could actually see her leave for school and come back again if he was standing at a window facing the street at certain times of the day. She was always walking past the house. He found out which school she went to and sometimes, when he could, went to the games she had with her volleyball team. There, he loved to see her jump up so high it almost seemed like she was flying, thoroughly enjoying the physical exertion, competing with the rival team. If his siblings wanted to go to the doughnut shop he tried to make them go in a time he knew she usually went there herself - if she went and that was not always the case. If he did not see her on that days he was usually grumpy for the rest of it. He even dreamed of her, sometimes, and not always were the dreams innocent anymore.

For someone who liked to call himself a genius it took him an embarrassingly long time to understand that he was harboring a growing crush on her. But when he did it was the beginning of what would lead them to that damn apocalypse.

When he understood that he liked her - more than he would consider normal - he thought about how he could get her to notice him. Because in his mind it was totally clear that once she took notice of him, it would be easy to swoop her off her feet and make her his. He was just that awesome.

The idea of how he would do that actually had come from herself. One day he had been sitting at Griddy's again, alone, and had heard Elizabeth (whose name he knew by now) talking with a friend she had taken with her this time. About some homework they were supposed to do; a creative writing assignment with the topic "what will the city look like in 20 years". Her friend had moaned about how she didn't have any idea what to write about when Elizabeth had agreed and then joked "wouldn't it be cool if we had a time machine or something? Then we could just travel to 20 years in the future and write about what we see." Both girls had laughed about that silly little idea, but he had gotten an inspiration.

He already could jump through space. What if he could also use his abilities to travel through time? How different or hard could this be compared to space jumping? If he could pull this off and then show her, take her with him, he was sure that she would fall head over heals in love with him. So he had told his father he wanted to try time jumping - and got denied.

Defiant and angry he had run out of the house, determined to proof his dad wrong and then dazzle the girl he wanted; when, in the next moment he run into that exact girl. Literally. And he thought it must have been destiny, that he was, of course, meant to do and take what he wanted. So, when he discovered that he could indeed time jump, having taken Elizabeth accidentally with him, he wanted, needed to show her more; make her understand how grandiose and powerful he was. That there was no one better than him.

He had forced her to come with him, despite her pleading and demanding that he take her back. Until he got them stuck in an apocalyptic future, discovering that anything and anyone they had ever loved was dead and he was unable to take them back to find a way to prevent it.

Only then, standing before the ruins of his own house, having discovered the corpses of his now older siblings, listening to the girl crying her eyes out and desperately calling for her parents, did he understand that he had been a conceited, selfish asshole, that his father had been right and that he was totally undeserving of Elizabeth Roberts.

/

AN: So, this chapter explores their past a little. I hope it doesn't seem too out of character for Five, to be the first one to fall in love. Passages from their past will appear here and there, though I don't promise it's always going to be a whole chapter. At this point we have caught up with the chapters I had already written before going public, so the uploading of new ones will slow down; though I try to make it at least once a week. Thank you so much for all the readers who have favorited and followed my story, I hope I will do you justice.

zZSweet-JasmineZz:

Thank you for another comment! I'm relieved you like Elizabeth and that she seems to fit well with everyone (at least until now). Nothing is more annoying, in my opinion, than an OC that seems totally forced into a story when she/he obviously just doesn't fit. I hope you still say that in a couple chapters, haha.

eriszun:

Thanks for your comment! Yeah, I had hoped for a little bit more romance as well, but maybe in the next season :) And that's what fan fictions are for.

Have a great day, guys!

Lulu