After returning to the plumbing van to find the inside void of life, Rhea assumes Five has followed Lance on foot. His unfortunate absence was a very welcomed excuse to avoid him - Luther's wrath be damned.
The redhead elects to spend over an hour working out at Al's before returning to the flat. When she sees her phone has received six missed calls from the Academy, she guesses it's just Luther being ape-shit mad at her for not coming back. So, to prevent being harassed by Number 1 any further, she turns her phone off and calls in an early night.
When she awakes this morning, she sees that Vanya's bed is empty and undisturbed – there was no way her sister could get ready in the same room as her without waking her. Normally this would have alarmed Rhea, but after the realisation that something was wrong with Mom, she wouldn't have put it past Number 7 to stay at the Academy to keep an eye on the robot. Rhea dresses into her jeans, a cobalt long-sleeved jumper and a grey leather jacket before she exits the bedroom and decides to leave her phone behind to keep Luther off her back.
She knew it was Lance's day off from Dan's hacking intel, so there was no doubt Five would be somewhere near the creepy man as he went about his day. Biting the bullet, Rhea blinks over to MeriTech and starts to walk to Lance's home address since she can't teleport to somewhere she's never been or can't see. His home wasn't far from the labs, so it wouldn't take too long.
When Rhea turns into Lance's street, she spots the man in question carrying a dog towards his car. The teen waits out of sight until Lance shuts the door for his dog before blinking herself into the back seat. The dog barks in shock but soon begins to nuzzle into her for affection which Rhea happily reciprocates by stroking its tummy – ah, his tummy. The second Lance sits in the car, a blue light flashes in the front seat accompanied by a very pissed off Five.
"Oh, Jesus!" Lance cries, and Five instantly lunges to hold a knife to his throat.
Rhea chuckles as the dog licks her fingers and Five's head twists at the noise. Five rolls his eyes at the girl and turns back to Lance, knife hand steady.
"One chance. That's all you've got. One chance to tell me exactly what's going on in that lab."
Lance's eyes dart wildly before focusing on Rhea with a pleading expression, but she just shakes her head at him.
"No way, buster – unfortunately I'm with him…"
"I… I manufacture prosthetic devices for fake patients. I bill the insurance companies then sell them for cash – on the black market," Lance stumbles.
"– Including eyeballs?"
"Yeah, they're my biggest seller. I mean, they sell like hotcakes. I – I've got a list, a waiting list, probably 20 buyers."
"So, the serial number I told you…"
"Uh, could've already be bought – Yes, off – off the books."
Five sighs in frustration as Rhea huffs, "For Christ's sake."
"I needed that list, Lance. Names and numbers, and I need it now!"
"I don't have it. I mean, not on me. The only copy's in my safe at the lab."
Five's jaw ticks in frustration, "Well, you start the car then. 'Cause we're going on a field trip."
"Okay," Lance stutters, eyes darting to Rhea again briefly before Five presses the knife closer into his sweating neck.
"Now," Five orders and then pulls back to let the man drive.
Lance clumsily fastens his seatbelt as the boy glowers at him. The dog, content with being petted, curls up half on Rhea and half on the middle seat.
"What are you doing here?" Five drawls, shiftingin his seat to face Rhea.
"I'm here to help; you were right, ok? No more distractions. This is important and I'm here to remind you that you're not alone."
He doesn't say anything back, but the animosity his eyes previously held diminishes before he circles back to watch Lance.
Hopefully this meant she was forgiven for whatever she had done to piss him off.
\
Smoke.
Fire.
A roar.
An explosion.
The blast is so intense, that both Rhea and Five are thrown off their feet and crash onto the ground. Hard. It takes about a minute to process what the hell just happened as they open their eyes to see debris and sizzling embers litter the sky and rain down. As both teens sit up, Five grunts in discomfort from the shattered shards of glass beneath their fingertips.
"Fuck." Rhea rasps, her back hurting from the impact and her brain throbbing because of the shrill ringing in her ears.
The pair have no words as they sit there in shock. Rhea chances a glance to Five and her heart sinks from the look of complete despair on his face.
Their one lead. Gone.
A movement from the corner of Rhea's right eye draws her foggy attention to Lance stumbling back to his car down the street. He's gasping for air and his head turns back frequently to check the flames - or his kidnappers - are not pursuing him. Before deciding what to do with the scientist, Rhea notices onlookers spilling onto the opposite side of the street, like ants to a picnic, to gawk at the spectacle. It isn't long before Rhea's clouded vision clears and zeros in on a woman reaching into her handbag and pulling out a camera.
Academy training kicking in, Rhea promptly composes herself and scrambles to her feet to shout to Five, "We have to get out of here. We can't be seen to be associated with this. The cops will be here soon."
He doesn't move from his spot on the ground or acknowledge her at all, so she hastily drops to her knees behind his back. She wraps her arms around him and interlocks her fingers together above his stomach. Being sure to fully enclose him to her, she closes her eyes and wills her green energy to surround them. The glow soon disappears and the familiar surroundings of her locker room at Al'scome into view – it was the first place she could think of where she knew they wouldn't be seen.
Still on the floor in this awkward backward embrace with their cheeks pressed together, Rhea slowly releases Five to stand. He still hasn't said anything, but when her arms fully withdraw from him, he seems to shake himself from his previous state and rises to his feet also.
"What did you do that for? We needed to look around to find out who did this!" He demands, face contorted in fury.
Immediately Rhea's own defensive anger flares, but she can quickly tell from his pacing back-and-forth that it was the situation he was mad at, not her.
"In case you didn't notice, the whole place was ablaze," she replies crisply, "no way can we go into that raging inferno - unless you have some secret flame-retardant power I don't know about?"
He sneers at her, emitting a harsh breath, and tilts his head to the side to crack his neck.
"Yeah, didn't think so…"
"Shit. Shit. Shit," he curses to himself and his hands find their way back into his pockets again. He continues to pace wall to wall within the small room then stops to press his forehead against the cold stone wall.
Rhea stays silent and brushes the ash off her clothes and pulls broken glass out her hair. Second time this week I'm picking crap off me – Welcome back to Academy life, Rhea.
"I'm going back to the library," Five states after a few minutes.
"The library, again? I thought you got all your books the other day?" She replies lightly, determined not to set him off again.
He steps away from the wall to look at her and she can see his emotionless mask has slipped back into place.
"There's someone there waiting for me."
"Ok… so not an open invitation then?"
He raises a dark eyebrow at her as if to say 'obviously' but she continues, "Well tough. I'm not leaving you. We're in this together now - whether you like it or not. The case just took a pretty big blow – no pun intended - and I can't guarantee you won't do anything stupid; like perhaps try go into that burning lab or go off to pummel Lance. I saw his face,Five, he was just as shocked as we were… And don't even think of flashing away from me, because I think I've got that following thing pretty much down now." She crosses her arms and juts out her hip in preparation for him to disagree with her.
Five continues to scrutinise her with his gaze for ten heartbeats then simply shrugs, "Ok."
Wow. That was… too easy? Her brain falters, "Really?"
"Yeah - but just so you know, Delores doesn't like strangers, so don't be offended that she won't speak to you."
Wait what? The girl he was with for 30 years IN THE FUTURE?
Denying Rhea the chance to voice her thoughts aloud, he powers up and steps forward. She has no choice but to jump into the blue light to follow.
\
A manikin.
Deloris was a manikin.
To say that was a surprise to Rhea was an understatement to say the least. But, she doesn't comment as she watches Five pull it – her – out of the olive green duffle bag along with some books and 2 bottles of vodka. So that's why he was shifty in the van yesterday - he wanted to get his plastic girlfriend out…
Five had chosen a secluded nook in the corner of the sciences section of library to stash his stuff in. To his credit, it was a great place to keep hidden from prying eyes. She could only imagine the uproar if people spotted the two dishevelled Academy teens, with minor cuts on their faces and bruises, and half a manikin drinking in public in the middle of the afternoon.
Rhea doesn't say no to the Russian goodness, even though she knew she should; her back was throbbing, adrenaline having long left her system, so she needed something to dull the pain… and to help her deal with Five's friend. Come to think of it, she had asked Five when they first met what his 'vice' for dealing with being a Hargreeves was – turns out it was a relationship with a manikin… She also recalled Five proclaiming the others had thought he was "crazy" with his apocalyptic talk, and Rhea could honestly say she would have agreed with them, had he brought his companion the day he arrived. But, after learning about the glass eye, seeing the explosion where their one lead was and the passion in his eyes, she still believed in him; no way could all that have been a coincidence or faked.
After shifting Delores into a 'comfortable' position, Five cracks open his vodka cap and says "Rhea, Delores. Delores, Rhea," gesturing to each of them in turn with his bottle holding hand. He then takes a deep swig and begins to read the glass window he had previously scrawled math equations on. Rhea sits down on the opposite wall to face them, being careful not to jar her back on the decent. Five had a series of books scattered across the floor, so she picks up the red one and idly flicks through it whilst she contemplates what to say. She didn't want to bluntly call him out on his unique choice of partner, but she wasn't the type of person to bite her tongue and not state the obvious either. Yet, she also knew it would be a lot easier to treat Delores as if she wasn't an inanimate object in order to prevent Five from dismissing her from the mission entirely. He believed that Delores was alive - saying otherwise or denying it wouldn't change that.
Rhea starts with something easy, "Sooo... How did the two of you meet?" she keeps her interest on the pages of quantum physics, addressing her question to no one in particular to show she wasn't outright ignoring the one-armed doll.
The boy turns his attention from his reading to look at Delores as if listening to her, then barks a short laugh before translating, "She says it's none of your business…"
Rhea's eyes flick up to meet his, her face clearly reading "Really", and he shrugs, "I told you she doesn't like strangers - but if you must know, it was within the first few days after I jumped forward. I tried to find shelter and I came across the ruins of a mall and found her." He focuses on the manikin again and rolls his eyes in jest at it – her - and continues, "She says I saved her, but I keep telling her we saved each other." Rhea can hear the genuine affection in his tone and see it in his eyes as he gazes at Delores, though he tries to play it off when he looks away.
"Ah, I see. Why didn't you want us girls to meet sooner? She was in the van with us yesterday morning, right?"
Five turns away from her to look the concrete pillar he also wrote on, "She's shy, and it wasn't the right time."
"Right... Well, do either of you have any idea who caused the explosion?"
"I have an idea, but I can't be sure… Delores says she knows, but I'm not going into it until I've got more proof," he swaps his vodka from his left to his right hand, bends to collect a discarded pen from the floor, tugs off the lid with his mouth and begins to extend an existing equation.
"First our sisters' book and now a public building – do you have no shame for your vandalistic ways?" Rhea jokingly quips.
"When the world is going to end in 5 days, who gives a shit?" Five states around the pen lid held between his teeth.
"True. But we're not going to let that happen. I know you will be able to figure it out – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but before it happens." Rhea pauses but he doesn't reply, "So, I think the next step is to find out if MeriTech had a cloud-system for their security surveillance, from there, we'll see where the fire started and how," she suggests taking another shot of the bitter alcohol.
Damn, Five and I really effortlessly encourage each other with drinking... Another task to add to the 'To-do after the Stopping the Apocalypse' list:
1.Make it up to Vanya for lying
2.Get Klaus sober permanently
3.Make it up to Vanya for falling asleep on her
4.Help Five cut the drinking
5.- and myself
Who knows how many more items will be added to this by the end of the week…
The 'pop' of plastic dropping to the tile floor rouses her from her internal ramblings, followed by the slosh of Five's vodka tipping into his mouth, "You can try that, but I bet it'll be a dead end."
"Well, I have got to try something, how else can I be of any use?" Rhea braces herself before getting up but fails when she tries to move. "Nope. Still in pain – yes, big pain. Breathe, Rhea, breathe," she whispers to herself through gritted teeth and scrunched eyes.
Five hears her utterings of discomfort and faces her again, "are you ok?" he questions hesitantly, though his expression is more bored rather than of concern.
"Back's killing me. I landed flat on my spine and I wasn't quick enough to relax into it - there's a reason Allison mocks me for my clumsiness," she curses and takes a deep breath, slowly releasing it out through her nose.
"Just use your powers," he states flatly.
"What do you mean?"
He cocks an eyebrow, "You can change your body to go forward or backwards…" he speaks to her as if she's a toddler.
Rhea's face remains blank, despite his obnoxious tone, "So…?"
"Reverse yourself to a day before or go forward to when it doesn't hurt…" he says it as if it was so obvious; he can't even convey the condescending drive behind his words as he's genuinely bewildered she didn't get his meaning.
She looks at him completely stunned, "I'm embarrassed to admit that have never thought of that…"
"Your power is basically immortality and you've not thought to use it heal yourself? How do you usually deal with pain then, if you're physically stuck on one day in time?"
"My body still functions normally, Five. It's just the physical ageing process my energy manipulates. I can still get sick and I can still get better at the same rate as anyone else, so it didn't occur to me to use it to hurry things up."
"Didn't the old man suggest it – because it's blatantly obvious to me."
She ignores his smug tone, "Hargreeves never said it could be possible either!" she declares defensively, then breaths, "But if he did, he never told me. Though, I'm sure you knew as well as the rest of us did - that he didn't care if we got hurt, because the pain after was a lingering lesson to remind us not to fail next time…"
Five couldn't argue with her there, so he concedes and returns to his equation.
Rhea still wasn't ready to go forward, so she wills energy to go back another 24 hours before THAT DAY, and her body proceeds to do so. There. All better. Like nothing happened…
"Wow, thanks." She smiles, genuinely grateful, and holds up her bottle out to Five.
He turns from the wall, "what?" He begins, but he sees Rheas radiant, pain-free smile, "oh right, don't mention it," clinking his bottle with hers, he sits crosslegged opposite her.
The two sit in silence, clearly lost in thought as the vodka works its way through their systems.
"Hey, Klaus is dying to know what you look like at 30. What's say you let me try to find out so I can wind him up about it later?" Rhea suggests, trying to make light conversation.
"Of all the things, that's Klaus' question about the future?"
"Yeah… but that's him isn't it. Never one to take anything seriously. I know it's annoying sometimes, but surely even grumpy ol' you can appreciate his comic relief?" Rhea cheekily asks and takes another swig.
He appears hesitantly curious, before he tilts his head towards Delores – as if it, she, was saying something – and rolls his eyes.
"It will be fine, don't worry," he mutters to Delores, then his lip curls in agitation by her response, "don't… I know what I'm doing. It worked…don't say that… I'm not…"
This goes on for a few minutes and Rhea only catches the odd word. Her eyes widen, utterly dumbfounded as she watches the man-child bicker with the mannequin.
Because this is totally normal. Must be Five's coping mechanism when he's having an internal debate with himself…I mean, being alone all those years, no wonder he talks to himself. Hell, even I talk to myself most the time – this is just an…extreme version of that.
Why she was internally defending him, she wasn't sure, but she felt for him because the end of the world was coming and there was nothing more they could do other than just pissed and watch it happen.
"Hey, let's not have a lovers' quarrel on top of everything else, just forget I said anything, ok?"
So they did, and carried on drinking and talking about mindless crap until Five passes out drunk as a skunk.
Then Diego and Luther show up.
/
"Well, we can't go back to the house. It's not secure. Those psychopaths could come back at any moment." Luther states whilst carrying Five in his arms.
Rhea was still conscious, but her constant stumbling as the four exited the Argyle prompted Diego to carry her in his arms also, despite her protest.
"I, I just, I just can't believe Mom is dead. Like, she didn't even do anything to no one everrr," she hiccups and weakly struggles to free herself again, but Diego's arms lock firm.
The two 'adults' ignore her, though they are still in shock. There was no time to morn.
"My place is closer, no one will look for them there."
Five, clutching Delores, belches, jolted from his drunken stupor.
"Noice," Rhea giggles, mildly disgusted, as Luther weakly warns Five if he vomits on him.
"You know what's funny? I'm going through puberty. Twice," he huffs, "and you," twisting his head in Rhea's direction, "chose that. What's that about?"
"Least I can hold my drink better than you, pubescent."
"I drank that whole bottle, didn't I? That's what you do, when the one-world you love, goes bye-bye… poof it's gone… What are you guys talkin' about?"
"Two masked intruders attacked the Academy last night."
"The came looking for you." Diego looks down and raises his eyebrow at the tipsy, wide-eyed redhead in his arms, "And your young female accomplice-"
She merely smiles in false innocence back at him and can see he's fighting hard not to smile back at her. Over 10 years and he still thought she was cute enough to get away with murder - his attention goes back to Five.
"- so I need you to focus. What do they want?"
"Hazel and Cha-Cha," Five's voice sighs.
"Who?" The pair to his left ask in sync, as the one holding him states "You know, I hate code names."
"Ah, the best of the best. Except for me, of course," he adds, true to his narcissistic ways.
"The best of what?"
"Secret things," Rhea giggles. Uncontrollably, she had fallen into the 'silly stage' of being drunk.
"You know, Delores always said she hated when I drink," Five ponders loudly to draw attention away from Rhea. "She said it made me surly-"
Diego doesn't buy it and stops the procession, "Hey, I need you to focus. What have you got Rhea involved in and what do this Hazel and Cha-Cha want?"
Five says nothing and mirrors Rhea's falsely innocent smile from earlier.
"We just want to protect you. Both of you."
"Aww-" Rhea starts.
"-Protect me? I don't need your protection Diego. Do you have any idea how many people I've killed?"
"No."
"I'm the fourth frickin' Horseman! She's safer wi' me and the apocalypse is-" but he doesn't finish, because he abruptly lurches in Luther's hold to throw up behind him.
"Ha – I said you'd chunder. Fork it over, man-child, you owe me 10 bucks!" Rhea laughs triumphantly before she snuggles into Diego's chest and closes her eyes. If Diego wasn't letting her go, she might as well steal his body heat to fight off the evening chill.
Five's out cold again after he vomits, so they make their way to Al's in silence assuming Rhea was also asleep. She hated pretending, but there was a reason Five wasn't telling the siblings anything. And after them reporting the attack on the Academy - which she assumes was by the people from his timey wimey organisation thingy – it was even more apparent Five was staying quiet to try protect them.
The men place the two teenagers back to back on Diego's bed, with Rhea facing the wall. She listens to her brothers' hushed voices but nearly breaks her 'sleeping character' when Luther calls Five adorable as he slept. Ha, as if.
She continues to listen, though she's fighting the urge to sleep herself. She forgot how comfy Diego's bed was, the two had picked it out together the first week he moved into Al's.
Diego leaves to help Patch after nearly throwing a knife at Al – how he couldn't recognise Al's footsteps by now was a mystery. Luther stays to babysit the teens, but when Rhea turns around she sees him fall asleep quickly after spreading out on Diego's couch.
The days actives run through her thoughts. Who set the lab ablaze? Will they find another lead? Was Five really in love with a object? And why would someone kill a defenceless robot? It all made her brain hurt and she begins to wish Klaus was there to make her feel better…
Five unconsciously turns to face her and nestles his head deeper into the pillow. Aw, maybe Luther was kinda right about him. Her mind wonders to how their drinking session started though her eyes start to droop. Maybe just a sneak peek of future Five can't hurt. Klaus would be most disappointed in me for missing this golden opportunity. She lightly places her right hand to his cheek as sleep tries to consume her. A faint green glow emits but her focus gets cloudier by the second. Prickles of stubble scratch against her fingertips, and for just a moment an older Five's face reflects back. An almost familiar comforting feeling takes over before sleep finally consumes her.
So, its been a while… if anyone is still following, sorry! As you could probably tell, I'm a writer who writes as they go rather than publish after they finish. I hope you can forgive me and enjoy the chapter - feed my muse to help me finish this haha 3