Who He Truly Is
5
"Claire," Allison breathed, her eyes welled up with tears as she heard her daughter's voice. The voice she hadn't heard in two years.
"Mommy is that you?" Claire asked, she sounded excited.
"Yes it is." Allison replied feeling a smile radiating onto her lips. She could see Five watching her, a corner of his lip turning into a smile.
"Daddy said I'm not supposed to talk to you." Claire said, her voice becoming quieter.
Allison held in the bitter laugh she felt rising in her throat because of course Patrick would tell Claire that. She had to remind herself, that he was only trying to keep their daughter safe from her.
"I know sweetheart but let's keep this a secret from Daddy, okay?" Allison said, hoping that her daughter would agree with her.
"Okay, it can be our secret." Claire said back, her whisper coming through the phone line and raising the hair on Allison's arms.
"Well I have somebody who wants to talk to you," Allison looked back at Five who was fiddling with his tie. He looked up, his young eyes wide and happy. Allison wished the older version of him looked like this but when he went back to normal, well he would be back to his sarcastic and asshole self again.
"Spaceboy?" Claire's voice was hopeful and Allison recalled the conversation that Claire had with Luther over two years ago, it must have only been a couple of weeks ago for Claire. Time travel was strange in that way, she had lived two more years than her daughter but for her daughter, time had stayed the same. She looked back at Five and thought about all those years he had lived in the apocalypse, he had lived twenty eight years more than them but had they really been living at all?
"No. Do you remember that story I told you about Uncle Five?" Allison asked, she didn't know if her daughter would remember. It had been one of the first stories she had told Claire, although she had illustrated the truth quite a little.
"Uncle Five? Didn't he go time traveling to save the world?" Claire asked. Allison remembered the story that she had told Claire, she had only been three at the time and wanted an adventure about the uncles and aunt that she had never met before. Allison had begun with the story about the infamous breakfast and about Five having a flare for the dramatic, wanting to time travel. If she remembered correctly, she had mentioned that he had ran out of the door, and didn't come back because he had gotten wind of some evil doing. It had had been made up on the stop because she didn't want to tell her niece that he had gone missing for years and nobody had known what had happened to him. It was almost ironic that he had been trying to save the world.
"Is he back?" She could hear Claire bouncing up and down on the sofa. She imagined her jumping up and down, several of the pillows falling onto the wooden floor.
"Yes he is, do you want to talk to him?" She looked at Five who was staring at her with his wide green eyes.
"Yes! Put him on Mommy!" Claire laughed again.
Allison moved the phone away from her ear and passed it to Five. He frowned as he picked the receiver up, put it to his ear and came to stand next to her.
"Hello?" He asked unsure.
Allison moved closer to the line so that she could hear Claire on the other end, her excitement picking up as soon as she heard Five's voice.
"Hello! Are you my Uncle Five?" She asked.
Five let out a small laugh.
"I am, Claire."
"You know my name! You sound really young aren't you supposed to be the same age as Mommy?" Five looked to Allison and they both exchanged a grimace. Of course Claire would have picked up on his voice, it hadn't even broke yet, his voice cracking on every other word. He did sound young. Allison tried to think of what they could say, but Five beat her to it.
"Time travel." He answered simply, because that was the truth wasn't it? Time travel and it was confusing enough to make anyone's head spin.
"Did you come back from saving the world? Mommy said you went! How old are you?" Claire almost shouted it down the line. Five shot Allison a quick glance, she wasn't sure of what to make of it and the only thing she could really think of was that he had questions, probably more questions to his situation that he previously thought.
"I guess, I'm thirteen." He said, although he didn't sound sure of himself anymore.
"You're near my age!" There was a pause from the other end. "I need to go, Daddy's back. Mommy I love you!" She shouted down the phone and there was a slam then quiet. Allison stared at the phone clutched into Five's hand. Claire was gone and she wasn't sure when the next time would be when she got to speak to her own daughter.
"She's gone…" Five muttered as he put the phone down. "Why did she have to put the phone down when her Dad came?" He asked turning to look at her.
Allison gulped. She knew the questions would come, to tell Five of one of her mistakes that she was still learning from.
"I'm in the middle of a divorce with my ex-husband." She felt the bitterness rise in her throat. It happened whenever she talked about Patrick and it was hard to hide the hate in her voice from Five, but he clocked onto it.
"You're in a divorce?" He asked, sounding surprised.
"Yes, I don't know when it will be finished." Allison muttered looking at the phone again, wishing by some magic that it would ring and Claire's voice would be there again.
"Why is he divorcing you?" Five asked. Allison groaned inwardly, that was the question she had wanted to avoid however she couldn't blame Five for being curious, it just reminded her of the beginning of her mistakes. Where everything had gone wrong.
She frowned before replying. "He saw me rumouring Claire, I messed up. She was having a tantrum and I wanted her to go to sleep-," She looked away from Five. She didn't want to see his eyes or his face and watch the judgment pass onto his features.
"Wait, you rumoured Claire?" There was only surprise in his voice, nothing else.
"It was habit, I started when she was three. I would do it whenever she had a tantrum, or I couldn't control her. It got too much and he saw. Who can blame him? I think I would do the same." Allison said, feeling the hurt pounding in her heart. She was allowed to feel hatred towards her ex-husband but he had only done everything for Claire's sake. She knew she would have done exactly the same, if he had been the one rumouring her daughter but it still hurt to have her daughter taken away from her. The phantom pain ached in her heart.
"Oh," Five said shuffling his foot. "Will he allow you to see her again?" He asked.
Allison let out a laugh, it held no humour in it. "Considering I didn't make the mandatory therapy, no. He's threatening to take away the visitation rights that I don't even have."
"That sucks." Five mumbled shuffling his feet again.
Allison turned around, she knew how difficult this was for Five. He didn't know much about her personal life, neither did much of her family. She should have shared more but how could she even bring all up of this up without feeling judged by the others? The only other person who knew was Luther.
"Yeah, I guess it sucks. If only I could go back in time." She ran a hand through her hair and let it rest there for a moment.
"You can't really change the past, we can only keep moving forward." Five said quietly. The irony of someone who had the ability to time travel saying that but Five was right.
"You know when you say that, you do sound like a old man." Allison covered her mouth when she realised what she had said. This Five wasn't old.
He grimaced and clenched his fists. Her first thought was that he was going to jump away but he flexed his fingers and looked at her.
"About that… can you rumour me back tomorrow?"
Allison blinked, she didn't think he would have wanted to be rumoured so soon.
"Why tomorrow?" She inquired, almost a little hesitant to continue.
"Because I want today to just be myself before I go back to normal." He quoted normal with quotation marks in the air. Five's stomach then began to rumble, the sound echoing through the empty hallway. "And maybe go somewhere to eat as a family?"
"Like where?" Allison asked.
"Griddy's?" Five said, sounding happy.
Griddy's. That one word took Allison straight back to being thirteen again. When all seven of them had sneaked out to get doughnuts, the three nights they had dared to feel like actual kids before going back to their depressing reality. It had actually been Five's idea at the time, spirits had all been pretty low at the academy because of the extra training their Father had put them through. After their first mission, he had scolded them because of the mess they had made. Their reward hadn't been any praise, no it had been extra hard training that had almost broken all of them. Luther had even thought about how their Father was being slightly unfair, which had been so rare for him back then. So with all of them feeling terrible, Five had come in to them one by one asking if they had wanted to go somewhere. Somehow he had convinced all of them and brought Vanya as long as well. It might have been the first time they had all hung out together properly that night. Five had taken them out one by one to Griddy's. They had all ordered the biggest donuts on the menu, they had felt sick to their stomach that day but it had made them feel better. Allison found herself missing those days, if Five had never left and Ben had never died, maybe they might have been happier. Well as happy as you could be with an abusive asshole Father.
"We're going to have to round everybody up and sort out the Diego situation." Allison recalled, he had gone somewhere probably looking for Five but hopefully wouldn't be too long.
"Is there a reason Diego's so angsty?" Five asked looking at Allison with a raised eyebrow.
"I wouldn't say he's angsty. He's been like that for the past two weeks, he hasn't told anybody why." Allison replied with a shrug.
Diego had spent time with them yes, but he also spent most of the day out of the house, his car not often returning late into the night. If Allison didn't have any other things going on at the moment then she might have seen what was wrong but they all had their own trauma to deal with. They were all together as a family again, and had started to try and do some family bonding. However it was debatable how well that family bonding was actually going.
"Has anyone asked him?" Five said.
"I guess not. Why do you ask?" Allison answered, looking at him. He was shuffling his feet again as if he was unsure about what to do with himself.
"Well it's just-," She watched as he cheeks began to redden and he hid his head away from her sight of field.
"You care." She said with a smile. It was such a rare thing, to see that Five cared.
"No," He sputtered looking up. "It's not that." He looked down again.
Allison let out laughter. Five cared, when he put his mind to it. The boy did actually care. She stopped laughing as soon as she saw that his cheeks were getting red again.
The Five that she recalled from her past had always been loud and boisterous. He was someone who had a certain lack of disdain for his family, he didn't associate with them much when they couldn't keep up with him academically or even powerwise. The only people he had really bothered with had been Vanya and Ben, or even Klaus on occasion. When she was young she had never really cared or even bothered with Five that much. To her, he had simply been the one sibling who she tolerated now and again. However there were times when he stood up to their Father and his defiance showed, despite his punishment always being severe he still stood up to him. It was one of the many qualities that she admired about him although she would never tell him that, not even now when he was staring at her with impossibly young eyes.
"Shall we round people up?" She asked and began to walk back towards the lounge. The low murmurs of Vanya and Klaus coming from the living room.
"Yes, we should." Five said with a smile.
As it turned out rounding all of their siblings up turned to be quite a challenging task. The easiest part had been Klaus and Vanya who hadn't moved. Luther had gone upstairs, he had taken some convincing but it had been Diego who had proved the problem. He hadn't come back yet and Five was getting a little wound up. He didn't know how long he had been sitting here, his heart hammering in his chest. Anything could have happened to his brother. He wanted to keep them all his line in sight, so he could keep proving to himself that this wasn't a dream. Much to his relief though, they all heard the front door slam and heavy footsteps caused by Diego's boots. He appeared in the doorway and rolled his eyes when he saw Five.
"So you stayed here then." He muttered, crossing his arms.
"Yes. Where else would I go?" Five asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well normally you're a slippery little shit, I didn't expect you to actually stay." Diego rolled his eyes. He sounded defeated, not anything like the feisty Diego from earlier. It weirded Five out a little but what would he know, this might have been Diego's personality now.
"I talked to Five. I'm going to rumour him back to normal tomorrow. He wants us to go all eat together at Griddy's before I do." Allison said looking at all of the siblings in the lounge. Vanya and Klaus were sitting together on the sofa, Luther standing by Five's portrait. The three of them agreed with nods of their heads.
"Griddy's?" Diego scoffed. "Griddy's is gone."
Those three words hurt Five more than he ever thought they could. Griddy's was gone?
He swallowed the lump in his throat. "What do you mean gone?" He hated how small and broken his voice sounded.
Diego looked at him, frowning in the process.
"The whole building was blown up a couple of weeks back. The whole place is closed off."
"But why?" Five asked, his voice sounding smaller. How could someone blow up a doughnut shop?
"I'm not too sure. Could have been Hazel or Cha-Cha when they tried to stop the apocalypse. They did go there once." Diego brought out one of his knives with his gloved hand and clamped down onto it. "At least Cha-Cha's not snooping around anymore."
Five blinked. He had no idea who on earth Hazel and Cha-Cha were and the way Diego was staring at him made him think his brother still thought that he knew who they were.
"I forgot you don't know who they are. They worked at the same place you did." Diego put his knife away, looking across at Five.
The Commission. Five remembered that name from earlier. Why on earth would those people blow the doughnut shop? It had nothing to do with the apocalypse. His heart hurt a lot at the thought of Griddy's being destroyed because that had been one of the places that he had wanted to go again. The last time all of his siblings had been together, and had been happy away from their Father had been those three nights at Griddy's.
"Maybe we should go somewhere else, there's got to be another doughnut shop somewhere?" Vanya asked. She looked at Five and offered a smile which he didn't return.
"It won't be the same." He muttered looking at the portrait of himself as the fire roared underneath it. The flames licking the grate, sprawling out of it. Five starred, feeling himself seeing the flames of the apocalypse when he first jumped. He could feel himself going back there, a scream in his throat. Then there was a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Allison watching him with a frown.
"Why won't it be the same?" She asked, concern in her features.
The concern made Five's skin crawl a little, he wasn't used to Allison acting so motherly.
"Because it's Griddy's." He mumbled knocking her hand of his shoulder.
She frowned.
"Because it's Griddy-Oh." She sighed as the realization took hold upon her. "It's because we all went there as kids, how long ago was that for you with your memory?"
Five thought about it for a moment. It hadn't been that long ago in his current state.
"Four or five months ago?" He said looking up at her, he dared a glance at his siblings and the looks on their faces were sad, even Diego's.
"Oh Five, no wonder you wanted to go there." Allison said, the smile wiping off her face.
Five shoved his hands back into his pockets and tried to show a faux pas of confidence.
"It doesn't matter, it was probably a dump after so long anyway." Five said not looking at his siblings and tried to hide the pain in his eyes. He had been looking forward to eating a doughnut, he remembered the waitress had always brought him the best, the jam filling had been heavenly. He had craved something sweet for so long, he wanted to taste the sugary donuts. He had missed tasting sugary things in the apocalypse. He wanted to know if he could still eat sugar and if it would help his powers. He had never really understood it that much, maybe it was to do with calories because he could always go a lot faster when he did have sweet things.
"Maybe we should go somewhere else, find a new place?" Vanya suggested.
Five knew they were going to have to choose a place but there was something inherently sad about going to a new place. When he was back to normal, would he even remember any of this? That had been scaring him the most, that he would forget that he was ever thirteen. Allison had never really done anything like this to anyone, or at least he knew of so what would happen? Would he wake up as his other self and wouldn't recall anything at all? He knew that he wanted to go back to normal so he could get his memory back but the thought still scared him. He listened as the siblings debated about where to go. He was trying to think, his head pounding. There had been another place, he was thinking of going instead of Griddy's. The place they could have gone back when his siblings were all young but they had gone to Griddy's instead.
"There's a small diner on the other end of the city. We could go there if it's still standing." He said with a shrug. He looked at Vanya as he said it and she was giving him a big wide smile.
"Oh you mean that little diner on 3rd Avenue?" Klaus said waving his hands.
"Yes, how do you know about it?" Five asked with a frown.
"Back when Dad kicked me out of the academy, I did one of my first shoot ups there behind the alley. The staff were kind enough to give me some free food. I always did want to go back." Klaus said it as if it was normal. It hurt Five to know that his Father had kicked Klaus out with nowhere to go. He almost wished his older self had traveled back to when they had been kids, to stop Ben from dying, to stop Klaus from taking drugs. He wondered why he hadn't, if he knew how to time travel that far back he would but he couldn't and there was no changing that.
"Do you know where is it Klaus?" Luther asked.
"Yes if it's still there, so are we going on a family outing with Fivey?" He walked over to Five and draped his arms around him. Five stumbled a little as he tried to hold the both of him.
"You're heavy get off." Five muttered trying to shove him off with his shoulders and his hands. Klaus didn't listen and latched tighter to his younger brother. Five had never really been one much for physical affection but when he wanted it, he would reach out for it. Right now Klaus was annoying him but the way Klaus latched onto him, it seemed almost desperate. It was probably the whole reason why Five hadn't blinked away. There was something bothering Klaus but he didn't want to say. Perhaps Five could ask him about it later.
"No Five, let me love you!" Klaus drawled on like he was a child wanting attention.
Five grumbled and try to cross his hands but when he realised Klaus's arms were in the way, he left them by his sides.
"Why won't you get off." He mumbled under his breath knowing full well that Klaus wouldn't be able to hear him.
"Your other self would kill right now. Can't we keep this Five?" Klaus batted his eyelashes at Allison who rolled her eyes.
That had had been bothering Five. What was his older self like? Was he the same person, or was he completely different? He found it really difficult to comprehend that his older self had come back into his thirteen year old body. That must have been so strange, right now he felt at home in his body but he knew tomorrow that would change. His stomach growled this time and he felt the physical pain that came with it. He looked over to Allison who was smiling at him, the mothering smile that he wasn't sure what to think about. She was his sister and although she had a daughter, it didn't mean that he was a replacement for her child.
"Well are we going to get some food or not?" Allison said, as she started to leave the room with Diego following closely behind her.
"I should go start up the car." Luther muttered and he walked away out of the room Five's eyes followed him then down to Five's stomac. His stomach hurting it, it made him think of what it had been like in the apocalypse. He needed some food and fast. He was trying to think of the last time of when he had ate and he couldn't recall anything. To his relief, Klaus let go of him and walked out of the lounge. His stomach growled again and he clutched at it. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the pain. He had felt it before and he could get through it. He heard rustling and looked up to see Vanya holding an energy bar.
"Here, eat it while we go to the car." She said shoving it into his hands.
"Thanks." Five said starting to open it. The rustling of the wrapper sounded so loud to his ears.
Vanya smiled and he followed her out of the lounge.