The pair drove in a surprisingly comfortable silence. Rhea's thoughts battled between feeling bad about ditching the others and wanting to solve the enigma that was Five. On top of that, she also felt guilty because she should have gone after Vanya, since it was so unlike the brunette to leave without saying goodbye. After coffee, she vowed to go back home to check on her.
Leaning her head against the window, Rhea watches the blur of buildings and people as they pass by. Five doesn't appear to be paying her any attention; his focus set on getting to their destination and the road in front. Does he want to get to know her too? Or is he only keeping her around because he's still suspicious? She just couldn't figure him out; unlike the rest of the Hargreeves siblings, he definitely wasn't an open book.
"Ah ha. There it is." Five says to himself as he steers the car off the main road.
The breaks screech to a stop and the car jitters forward a few times, but he pulls over in front of Griddy's Doughnuts.
Restraining herself from commenting on his lack of stopping skills, Rhea instead admires the neon cup and doughnut sign. "Oh, I remember this place!" Rhea says and her brain wonders fondly to the memories of coming here when she was a teen.
Five turns off the ignition then flashes out of his seat so he is outside her door again. He pulls it open and waits for her to get out, the same way he did at the house.
"Err, thanks." She murmurs before she hurriedly brushes past him towards the diner.
/
The diner was just as she remembered it, only tonight it was empty and the interior was a bit dingier. The circular lights on the ceiling also hadn't changed and they still remind her of the underside of a spaceship she saw in an old movie once.
Five takes the seat at the front counter on the corner and dings the bell. Rhea sits to his right, front facing him and leans her right arm against the counter's surface.
"Well, this is nice." Rhea says to try make conversation.
"It could be if we got some damn service," Five grumbles, irritated. He obviously needed a caffeine fix just as much as she did.
The bell above the door chimes and they both turn to see a middle aged man walk in. Clearly he had hard day as he exhales deeply whilst he takes off his hat and reaches for the newspaper in his back pocket. He sits next to Five and smiles at Rhea, but he soon catches the stern expression on Five's face. Hastily, the guy unfolds his paper and looks away to begin filling out his cross word.
Five unconsciously shifts closer to Rhea while he interlocks his fingers in front of him. He then rests his arms on the counter and regards the other customer suspiciously.
The waitress soon emerges from out back, sighing and rubbing her hands on her white apron before she beams at Rhea and explains, "Sorry, the sink was clogged. So, what'll it be?" Naturally, she asks the adult in the room first and Rhea senses Fives annoyance at not being addressed directly.
"Uh, give me a chocolate éclair," the guy responds.
"Mm-hmm. Sure." She writes down the order on her small notepad. "Can I get the kids a glass of milk or something?" she addresses the man again.
Five scoffs while Rhea rolls her eyes - this happens to her all the time. "The kids want coffee. Black." Five orders and Rhea, sensing the waitress' wariness, follows up with, "which would be great, please," using her politest voice.
The waitress tensely laughs at Five's comment, but then smiles and addresses the guy after Rhea's, "Aw, aren't they a cute pair?"
Five puts on the biggest fake smile he can muster for the waitress. Rhea nudges him with her elbow as she can sense the poor woman is as disturbed by this as much as the rest of them. Five is jolted by the action and turns towards Rhea allowing the woman to leave to get on with their order.
"What?" he questions, giving her an annoyed but amused smirk.
"Stop it, you're creeping these poor people out," Rhea whispers back while she contemplates the "cute" comment.
Five sighs again and looks back to the guy next to him, "Don't remember this place being such a shithole." It's clear the man is shocked by Five talking to him, but he respectfully gives him his attention and Five continues, "I used to come here as a kid. Used to sneak out with my brothers and sisters and eat doughnuts till we puked. Simpler times, huh?"
"Eh. I suppose," the guy nods awkwardly.
Rhea can't help but feel sorry for Five. As soon as he mentioned he had been in the future, her mind had just been consumed with ideas of what the future would be like. She never really thought about how Five had felt about unintentionally leaving his family behind.
The waitress brings over Rhea's coffee and Rhea politely gives her thanks. The woman then looks at Five hesitantly before giving him his cup, and proceeds to give the guy his éclair.
"I got theirs" the guy says as he hands her the cash.
"Thanks", "Thank you, that's very kind of you," Five and Rhea say to the man at the same time, surprised but grateful.
"Young love - so adorable." The waitress sweetly comments again to the man as she accepts his money then hums happily as she walks back to the kitchen.
From her comment, Five's expression is inscrutable, while Rhea's is completely astonished. The waitress did think they were a couple. What!? More like a kid and his babysitter! Rhea silently chuckles to herself imagining Five's outraged reaction if had she said that comment aloud. She then brings the hot cup to her lips and blows on the steaming liquid; the smell is incredible - just what she needed.
Five notices the other customer is a truck driver and asks him for an address of a place called MeriTech or something, but Rhea doesn't really pay attention. Instead, she begins to get lost in the memories this old place brings back to her.
\
The first time she came here she was 13; when Ben and Klaus had brought her here the evening after she was inked with her umbrella tattoo. She was so upset and shocked by how painful it was that Ben had insisted these delicious doughnuts would make her feel better. Klaus, forever keen to break the rules, had shown her how they snuck out and told her that the perfect time was when Mom was doing laundry in the basement and Pogo was in his bedroom reading. Since their dad was always in his office - outside of training hours and meal times - he was always too busy to notice their forbidden escapades.
The sugar-coated treats lived well up to expectation, far better than the few doughnuts Rhea had had in England. She was overwhelmed by how there were so many variations of fillings and toppings that she instantly decided to come back again with Vanya the next time she was upset. Rhea also came here with Diego many times too because it used to be a good place to get away from prying eyes. She always thought Luther and Allison probably should have done the same thing, because those two clearly had a thing for each other. They never did come as a group of seven though, which now seemed to make sense - it was something special they used to do with Five…
/
The chime of the door brings Rhea out of her past and back to the present. The truck driver had left and Five was folding the address he was given and placing it into his blazer pocket.
Five finally reaches for his coffee, so Rhea prepares herself to tell him her story. It was only fair and if she couldn't tell a fellow adoptee of the Hargreeves brood, who could she? However, her attention is quickly taken by the group of men in black carrying guns walking past the window and filing into the diner. "Er, Five?" she alerts, as she places her cup back on the counter practically sync with Five doing the same. He had already detected the intruders.
"Hmm that was fast. I thought I'd have more time before they found me." Five swivels in his chair to locks eye contact with Rhea, and they have a quick, voiceless conversation using their eyes:
You knew this was going to happen?! Her eyes practically scream at him.
Yes. This is going to get messy. Just get down and stay hidden.
Please, if you think I'm sitting out of this, you're wrong.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
The biggest guy closest to them speaks first, "Okay. So let's all be professional about this, yeah? On your feet and come with us and we won't touch your little girlfriend. They want to talk."
Five continues to hold eye contact with Rhea, not even glancing towards the assailant or the guns pointing right at them.
Are you sure you wanna get involved with this? Five asks her one last time with his gaze.
We're family, aren't we?
Five smirks back at her before he replies to the man aloud, "I've got nothing to say."
"It doesn't have to go this way. You think I want to shoot you kids? Go home with that on my conscience?"
Now it's Rhea's turn to smirk, ha, he'll be lucky if he gets to walk out of here alive.
\
To an outsider, the two teens appear to be looking at each other, oblivious to what's going on around them. In reality, they are both well aware of how many men and weapons there are and they're calculating their next moves. It's what Mr Hargreeves had always taught: Appear innocent and unawares, but always be tactical and strategize how to destroy. Five was impressed by how well Rhea kept her cool and could see the confidence behind her big, green eyes.
Ready?
Ready.
Five's cocky grin grows and he subtly reaches for the knife to his left, "Well, I wouldn't worry about that," he says to the goon, "you won't be going home."
The second the last word leaves Five's mouth, he clasps his fingers around the breadknife and flashes out of his seat to make good on his words, stabbing the man in the back. The shock of the move makes the goon squeeze the trigger on his gun and shoot his associate opposite him.
Meanwhile, Rhea disappears though her teleport and lands next to the guy behind her. Before he can realise she's there, she punches him in the temporal lobe with her right hand and seizes a knife hilt from his belt with her left. She uses the momentum as he falls forward to pull the blade fully out, and then stabs him with it under his armpit, being sure to strike the axillary vein so he bleeds out.
She retracts the knife from his body to see Five on her left led down on his side on a table. Quickly deducing what his plan is, she spatial jumps towards the bathrooms and Five draws everyone's attention to him, calling "Hey, assholes!"
The group of stupid thugs all fire towards the source of the jeer, but his teleport is too fast and their rain of bullets strike straight into the walls and destroy the diner's menu displays. Rhea surges forward and pulls down on an elbow of a still firing arm so that the M4 is redirected under the thug's chin, killing him instantly.
Five is busy taunting a guy from outside and Rhea can't help but admire his style and she giggles. The noise causes another assailant to spot her and advance, so she kicks the gun from his grasp and punches him in the middle to push him away. Suddenly Five appears and stabs the guy in the side of the gut with a mop handle, so she flashes back to the other side of the room and uses her stolen knife to slash the throat of the guy who's about to get a clear shot at Five.
Five nods his thanks to her and then flashes to the middle of the room to break a brute's neck with his academy uniform tie. Rhea jumps so she is beside Five and kicks the guy advancing at him in the crotch. As she prepares to strike him again, Five interlocks their fingers in a unexpected handhold. Before, she can question why, he's already pulling her into a run towards the counter and through his teleport. The two idiots still with guns end up shooting at each other, promptly killing the guy cradling his kicked balls in the crossfire.
\
Five and Rhea reappear in the room through Five's blue flash. The lights are constantly flickering violently after being shot at and the whole place is littered with bullets, blood and bodies. Five lets go of Rhea's hand to retrieve his tie from the neck of the guy he killed with it. Both teens are panting heavily from the exertion of spatial jumping so much in a short amount of time.
Whilst Five puts his tie back on, Rhea scowls at all the blood over her jumper and shakes the shattered glass out of her hair. She's soon alerted to the presence of the last thug alive because he starts rasping for life face down on the floor beside her.
"There's still one left," she says tiredly, "over here."
"It's okay, I got it." Five replies, pulling the bottom of his jumper back down as it had ridden up. He then crouches over the thug and breaks his neck with his hands in one twist
"Hey, what's that?" Rhea gestures as she notices a discarded piece of tech on the floor next to the now dead guy.
Five picks up the box and realises it's a tracker that had picked up a signal in the room.
"Ah shit," he huffs and moves to sit down at the counter again. "Can I borrow your knife?"
"Err, sure. One sec." Realising what he's about to do, Rhea quickly wipes as much blood off the blade as possible on a dead guy's jumper. She then takes her zippo out of her jeans' pocket and lights it. After she holds the end of the blade over the flame for a few seconds, she hands it over to him.
"Sure you don't want me to do it for you?" Rhea asks and then grins as he stares blankly at her in refusal.
Five barely flinches as he stabs the point of the knife into this right arm to make an incision. Blood oozes from his skin and Rhea doesn't breathe a word. Five grunts as his fingers dig into the wound in search of the chip and he groans painfully when he seizes it to pull it out.
He studies its blinking light while Rhea stands there acknowledging that her assumptions about this evening were indeed, correct.
/
Aware the waitress was still probably hiding in the back; Five and Rhea silently walk straight out the diner's front door. Five drops the tracking chip into a puddle next to a drain and begins to straighten his tie again as they head towards the car.
"Right, now that damn tracking chip is out, we better get out of here. I wanna go to Vanya's."
"That's it? That's all going to say? After all of that?" the disbelief is evident in Rhea's voice.
"What? You want me to give you a hug and say 'oh, thank you for saving my life, we make such a great team?'" his voice raises a couple of octaves towards the end of his sentence and that damn smirk is back on his lips again.
They reach the car and just as Five is about to open the door for her, Rhea blocks his reach, crosses her arms and looks at him expectantly.
After a short period of stalemate, Five is the first to recede, "It's obvious we make a good team, alright. And I'll thank you for it later, but right now, we really need to get out of here before the cops - or worse - show up."
Rhea holds her ground for a moment longer, before she steps aside and hastily opens her own door before he has a chance to. This time, he jogs around to the driver's side whilst she settles in and fastens her seatbelt. She's careful not to cut the belt with her new knife as she does so. Hargreeves' Rule Number 9: Never leave evidence.
Five starts the engine and steers the car onto the road with haste. He senses Rhea is still pissed at him by the way she's not looking at him at all and attempting to unknot her chestnut locks by pulling at them with her fingers.
He shakes his head at her pointless attempt and says, "Look, if you tell me where Vanya lives I'll fill you in on what just happened and why, because I'm really not in the mood to go rifling through state records right now."
Since Rhea's failing miserably at her efforts with her hair and concludes a shower is just what she needs, she says, "Fine. I'll direct you." She can see the relief roll off Five's shoulders in waves, "and FYI it's not just Vanya's, it's my flat too." Not that she'd been there for the last few months…
/
After proving she lived with Vanya by opening both the building and front doors with her keys, Rhea calls out to an empty apartment. Knowing Vanya had her orchestra practice tomorrow, she tells Five their sister wouldn't be out much longer.
Their apartment was just the same as when she left it, not that she expected Vanya to have redecorated in her absence anyway. Rhea and Vanya had found the place together as soon as they turned 17, a few days after Diego left the academy. It wasn't much - merely a single living space with kitchenette and one bedroom just big enough for two beds and next to a train line that woke them up often - but it was home. It was freedom away from Mr Hargeeves and the grief and haunting memories the Academy bought them.
Shutting the bedroom door behind her, Rhea was delighted to see that all her stuff was still in the correct places. Surprisingly, Vanya didn't box it all up like Rhea thought she would have during her long absence. Once Rhea was safely ensconced in the bathroom, she leans back against the door, closes her eyes and takes her first deep breath since Five appeared.
What the hell was going on with him? Sure, she was used to disposing of bad guys, but how the hell did the kid – no, man - make enemies that quickly when he'd only been back less than a few hours? It made no sense at all.
She hurries as she strips off and hops into the hot shower spray to wash away all the chaos from her hair and body. The quicker she showers, the quicker she can to get back in there and get some answers. After slipping into a cosy, dark grey jumper dress and black sheer tights, she tugs her Docs back on before grabbing her hairbrush to attack her wild mane.
/
Rhea opens the bedroom door to return to Five when she realises Vanya is closing the front door saying, "You are so weird," to Five.
"Yes, dear sister, that he is."
Vanya notices her sister approach with a brush stuck in her wet hair, "Ah, that's how you got in," she determines and then exhales happily as Rhea gives her a much needed hug.
"Are you ok, Vanya? You left so unexpectedly, did something happen?"
"Oh you know…the usual." Vanya replies, pulling away from the welcomed embrace, "Siblings who hate my guts moaning about my presence."
"As I've said to you a hundred times, that's not true and you know it," Rhea sighs and lets Vanya go so the brunette can take off her damp coat. Rhea moves to sit on the couch across from Five to finish brushing her hair. "We all have our vices to cope with the shit-show that is our lives: Vigilante Diego attempts to fight crime, Allison rumours her way to the highest pedestal in society, Klaus drinks and stupidly takes drugs, Luther hides on the moon, I spend far too much money flying back and forth to England and you wrote a book. Who cares? I bet even Five here has a strange obsession too - right, Five?"
Vanya sits down beside Rhea on the couch to hear Five's response but she spots red on the collar of his shirt. "Is that blood?"
Five casts his gaze to the stain then looks at Rhea with a 'don't say a word' expression.
"It's nothing."
Vanya misses the silent exchange and asks, "Why are you here?"
"I've decided you're the only ones I can trust."
The two sisters pause at this and Rhea stops tugging her hairbrush though her finally combed out locks to listen.
"Why me?" Vanya asks first.
"Because you're ordinary."
Rhea can practically feel Vanya's upset from this out-of-line statement and just as she's about to blow up at Five and kick his ass, he continues, "Because you'll listen."
Somewhat pacified by this, Vanya murmurs, "Okay" and gets up hastily to leave the room.
"Are you kidding me? Don't say shit like that to my sister!" Rhea hisses. She shoves his foot off his knee so his leg is no longer crossed over the other. She was so sick of these siblings having such a 'holier than thou' attitude towards Vanya.
"Our sister has no powers. It's not an insult." Five fires back at her.
"It's not the point," she glares. "Why aren't you telling her about Griddy's and how has your opinion towards me changed so suddenly?" She can't believe the complete U-turn from his previous judgement.
Either choosing to ignore her or being interrupted by Vanya's return, Five doesn't answer. Vanya moves towards her brother carrying gauze and antiseptic, so Rhea scoots over so Vanya can sit closer to him. Bless her. She's got the med kit out to help him even though she hates blood. Gosh, she's the sweetest person, Rhea summarises.
Five accepts Vanya's aid and pulls up his sleeve so she can clean the wound on his arm. Good job Rhea had hidden the knife in her draw when she fetched her fresh clothes - she didn't want her sister thinking she had been the one to stab her long-lost brother.
"When I jumped forward and got stuck in the future, do you know what I found?"
"No." Vanya's sympathetic voice replies. Rhea remains silent, satisfied about finally getting some answers.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. As far as I could tell, I was the last person left alive. I never figured out what killed the human race, but I did find something else. The date it happens." The girls could sense Five was reliving his memories as he spoke them, his attention lost to reality around him. As if coming out of a trance, he then addresses them directly, "The world ends in eight days, and I have no idea how to stop it."
Vanya stays silent in shock at his words, while Rhea can't help but say what she's thinking, "Fuck," she was not expecting that.
"I'll put on a pot of coffee."