11
A Choice To Make
Five felt restless, his whole body was jumpy. He wanted to fly through the roof every time he heard the slightest of noises. He paced up and down the empty hallway, only hearing his footsteps on the marble floor.
Allison had just gone to court, Five wished he could have gone with her. It might have distracted him enough so that he wouldn't have fallen into memories but he could feel his older self lurking in the dark, stronger than he was and what he was supposed to feel about that he didn't know. He could see the apocalypse, he didn't want to go there! He could feel himself slipping until heard voices coming from up the hallway.
"Stop moving! Honestly Claire, you need to stop fidgeting." A woman's shrill voice sounding throughout the hallway.
Claire. It had to be his niece, the coincidence was too great.
"But Grandma I'm bored." A young voice protested back. It was Claire's voice, the one he recognized from the phone.
The pair of them came around the corner less than a minute later. The woman who Claire had called her Grandma was a tall thin woman with a sparrow-like face. She wore a black suit that was ironed perfect and pressed firmly without a wrinkle in sight. Claire looked tiny next to her, but also looked like the spit of Allison. She had the same nose and eyes as her mother. Her hair was wrapped tight in a bun and she wore a bright red sunflower dress decaled with flowers that flounced as she walked.
They got near him and the woman sighed again, sculpting a piece of grey hair back into her gelled ponytail.
"Your Father won't be long, I highly doubt that this court case will be won with the deranged Mother of yours." The woman said with a huff.
"Don't say that about Mommy!" Claire cried, crossing her arms over.
The woman didn't reply as she noticed Five hovering near them, her face turned into a scowl and she zeroed on him with a sharp gaze.
"Excuse me young man, where are your parents?"
Five really wanted to be rude. Allison's ex mother in law obviously didn't like her and he did not want to associate with a woman like her. However his heart was hammering, he wanted to escape but he knew he couldn't show his powers. He was trapped.
"They're in court." Five said, finding his voice. He said it as quietly as possible. He needed his answers to be quick if he wanted to be believed.
"Well why aren't you with them?" The woman muttered.
"I didn't feel great so I came outside for a bit of air." The lie came almost too easily.
"Well you are welcome to stay with us for a bit young man since you are on your own, what's your name?"
Five panicked. He couldn't tell her that his name was Five. She might know who he was.
"Arthur." Five blurted out the first name that came to his mind. He didn't want to know why his older self had suggested that name. He didn't know why he was helping him either.
I want to meet her. Was the only response that he got. The voice sounded stronger in his head, like it was part of his mind. It almost felt natural and that scared him.
"Well Arthur you can stay with us if you would like?" The woman said, glaring at him.
Five gulped and nodded. He doubted that this woman took no for an answer. He didn't miss how Claire was staring at him, her gaze was curious but he doubted that she recognised him.
The woman's phone began to ring and the woman tutted.
"I need to answer this, can you look after Claire for ten minutes? I'll only be down the hallway."
She answered her phone and without giving Five a chance to reply, she walked away with the clack of her high heels.
Five didn't say anything as Claire studied his face. She looked almost puzzled and part of him wanted him to figure out who he was while the other didn't because of what she might say to her Grandma.
"Do I know you?" Claire asked, playing with the hem of her dress.
Five didn't know how to reply.
"That depends." He said, shrugging and shoved his hands into his pockets.
Claire frowned and then a smile delighted her features, making her seem like a ray of sunshine. Before Five knew what was happening, she launched herself forward and her hands wrapped around Five's waist. Her hug was tight and warm, similar to her mother's.
"Uncle Five!" She said into his blazer.
Five blinked in surprise, he moved away from her level and bent down to talk to her.
"You know who I am?"
Claire smiled. "I recognised your voice! You sound just like you did on the phone!"
She looked up at him showing a toothy smile, with a missing front tooth.
"I guess I do. It's nice to meet you." Five said and he hugged her tightly.
The two of them didn't move for a bit until Claire pulled away and bit down on her ring finger. She looked nervous.
"Uncle Five?" She said holding onto the hem of his blazer.
"What is it?" He asked standing up from the hug.
"Why are you here? Were you with Mommy?" She asked looking into his eyes. Five could see the tears brimming already.
"Yes, I came with her. Do you know what's happening?" Five questioned. He had wondered if Claire had been told anything. She was only seven but she wasn't stupid, she could obviously see that something was wrong.
"Daddy doesn't love Mommy anymore and he won't let me see her." She said still holding onto the fabric of his blazer.
Was that all she had been told? Nothing about what Allison had told him? Five knew he wasn't going to be the one to tell her that. Allison would have to that herself, and then maybe her daughter might forgive her. Claire deserved to know.
He wasn't sure what to say, he had never known happy families growing up, and even now his siblings seemed so broken but they were fighting everything that Reginald Hargreeves had done to them.
"That's why your Mom's fighting right now, she wants to see you." He said patting her on the head.
He didn't really know what else he could say to her, she was someone who he loved, she was his niece after all, but he had never been good at making any active conversation. Instead all he did was let her hug his waist again, for comfort. That moment didn't last very long.
There was a zap from behind him and Five turned to see the man who Diego had fought in the restaurant. A briefcase was clutched in his hands. Five's eyes went wide. He looked a little worse for wear, he was dressed in a suit that might have seen better days and there were various scratches and bruises, all over his face.
"Why are you here?" He asked, his voice shaking. He tried to step in front of Claire so she was obscured from view.
The man laughed.
"Well Number Five, after my little fight with your brother. I couldn't get out of jail for at least five days. Good thing that they're still people on my side in the commission, isn't there?" The man laughed.
"I don't know what you want, I still don't know who you are." Five said through gritted teeth, because in reality he really didn't know.
"I'm guessing you've lost your memory- no matter I will make you remember." The man said with a shrug of his shoulders and then noticed Claire hiding by Five's leg.
"Now who's this? I love children, they were always my favourite things to kill," He said with a grin. "Their screams were like music to my ears."
Claire whimpered and she gripped Five's waist even tighter. Five's heart was beating faster and faster. He needed to get out of here and fast. Claire was obviously in danger.
"Leave her alone!" Five said, trying to put on a façade of false bravery.
The man frowned at him and then laughed.
"The great Number Five, memory lost, a child and you think you scare me? Now, I can get my revenge!"
"What revenge? I haven't done anything to you?" Five said, frowning. He hadn't said this back at the restaurant. So where on earth had this come from?
For once he had been hoping that there might have been answers for his older self, but that clearly wasn't going to happen. He was going to have to face this by himself.
The man said nothing and grinned at Claire.
"Well first I'll be taking her. I already have your family." He grinned again.
His family? Diego? Klaus? Luther? Vanya? He had all of them?
"What have you done to them?" He shouted. He should have never left home! They could be dead like they were in the apocalypse and all because he didn't protect them!
"Well you'll have to find out!" The man said with another shrug.
Five growled. Claire needed protecting. This man wasn't scary! Although his heart was racing. He had fought scarier men than him when he had gone on missions with his siblings. Although if he wasn't scared, why were his hands trembling?
Five looked at Claire, and realised that he needed to get her away from the scene.
He bent down to Claire and whispered into her ear.
"Claire, when I say go and find your Grandmother. I'll have to fight him." He didn't want to leave Claire but she had a better chance running so he didn't protect her. He waited a moment.
"Go!" He shouted.
Claire took off running and the man began to cackle.
"This is perfect!" He said, still holding the briefcase.
Boy, you have no chance! He's stronger than you! His older self protested through his mind. Five ignored him, he could do this.
He looked around the empty hallway for a makeshift weapon he could use and saw a fire extinguisher. He sighed, it would have to do. Five blinked over to him and broke the object off and saw the man still waiting. He grinned, the man had no idea what was coming.
He blinked over and threw the fire extinguisher at the man with his left hand. It went flying but the man simply put the briefcase up and it bounced back, knocking him back a few inches.
"Is that all the Great Number Five has up his sleeve? I've seen better tricks from kindergartners!"
"Shut up!" Five growled. It looked like this was going to be a hand to hand fight then.
Five teleported near the man and threw the first punch it landed into the man's jaw with a sickening blow. The man began to counterattack by punching him in the jaw too but Five teleported to so the only thing the man punched was air.
"That's cheating Number Five!" He taunted and placed the briefcase down.
Five didn't reply to the taunt, instead he blinked to the man's side and tried to sidekick him. The man caught his foot and twisted his leg. He pushed Five away and Five landed onto his back with a large thud.
He stumbled to his fight, much to the protest to his sore legs. There were probably already bruises beginning to form already but he didn't care. He had to fight for his family and Claire. He hoped she had found her Grandma.
Five blinked again, he was reaching his limit. He needed to think. If he could knock the man over and steal the strange briefcase, then he might be able to use it as leverage. He blinked near the man's leg and used a sweeping kick. The man stumbled but didn't fall over, he grinned.
Five tried to blink but his powers frazzled. No. No. Not now. Not now. He needed them to work. God damn it!
"Run out of juice?" The man said with a grin.
He picked up Five by the back of his suit collar and began to punch his shoulders, his abdomen, his legs. Five screamed in pain. He had never felt anything like it. It was like the man's punches were made of iron piercing his skin.
"Stop!" He begged. Five had never begged in his life, but he wanted it to end. He could feel his eyes sinking. The word was collapsing, and then he was falling to the floor.
He could see the shadow of the man walking towards something. Claire! Why hadn't she left yet? He heard a scream as the man took her in his arms. No, why hadn't she ran?
"Ripley you bastard." He whispered before the dark took over.
Five shuffled in his seat as he stared at the Handler sat across from him. She was puffing up on her cigar. She blew some off the smoke into his face and he coughed, then waved the smoke away. What on earth was this woman's problem?
"So Number Five, how long have you been working with us now?" She asked, taking another puff.
"Three months." Five replied with his gruff voice. He straightened his tie and adjusted his suit. Even after three months of being out of the apocalypse, it still felt strange to wear brand new clothes that he got cleaned. It was nice.
"Three months wow. And in those three months, you have shown incredible potential,"
Five thought about all the people he had killed in the last few months, people who would have changed the timeline. Just like he wanted to do with the apocalypse, it was a strange sense of irony that he couldn't escape.
"And you have been working solo as we wanted to get you used to the world again, but I think it's time that we change that."
"Well? Get to the point." Five scoffed. He had been hoping for a few moments of rest after his latest mission but of course it looked like the Handler wasn't going to let him.
"Here at the commission, we believe in teamwork. It's what our founder wanted, and for that reason we've decided to assign you a partner. Agent Ripley, please come in." The Handler pointed to the door as it swung open.
Five stayed silent and watched as a man walked into the room. He appeared to be in his early forties, he still had most of his blonde hair but it was beginning to go grey, making it look like he had pepper in his hair. There were a few lines by his eyes, but otherwise he looked young still. Younger than Five, but everybody looked younger than him these days. He was wearing exactly the same pinstripe suit that was pretty standard in the commission.
"Well Number Five! It's a pleasure to meet you!" Agent Ripley said. He stayed standing and leaned on the Handler's desk.
Five didn't reply, only raised an eyebrow and turned back to the Handler.
"You want me to work with him?" He said, in a droll tone. He had no interest in this man.
"Yes, I do believe you used to work with others?" She said, smiling.
Five eyes narrowed and he had to bite his tongue, how dare she even talk about his family. She was the one with the power to be able to stop the apocalypse. Right there and then Five wanted to shoot the Handler with his gun. However instead, he stood up and looked at Agent Ripley. The man still had that strange grin on his face.
"I'll see you on the next mission then." Five said and blinked out of The Handler's office.
It turned out that the next mission was a day later. It was a relatively small mission, stuff that Five was used to. It was a young nurse in 1940's Germany who was working in one of the concentration camps. She was a double agent and had plans to free a few of the prisoners, by pretending that they were dead. It was a risky move, but it would give her a medal at the end of the war. However the woman was supposed to die, and not get a medal as the camp would then be liberated a few months later.
Five thought it was a pointless mission, but he had to be told what to do.
He left the room that he had started to call home the last few months. It wasn't much, but it was a thousand times better than the apocalypse. It was near the Commission's Headquarters and had more in common with a 1960's motel room than a home, but it had a bed to sleep in and that was all Five cared about.
As he left his room with a briefcase and gun case in hand. He saw Ripley waiting outside in the hallway, still with the same stupid smile on his face. He really didn't like that smile. Something about it unnerved him.
"Well Number Five, first mission isn't this exciting?" Ripley said and put his hand on Five's shoulder.
Five froze and growled at the man.
"Don't touch me. And it's just Five. Now we have a mission to do, that's it." Five said.
Ripley backed off and put his hands in front of his chest.
"Sorry! Sorry! I'm all excited. First day on the job! I can't wait to see how the briefcase works." He said flexing his fingers.
Five sighed as he began to dial the coordinates on the briefcase. Whatever ditch the handler had found Ripley from, he really didn't want to know. As he put the final coordinate in the briefcase, the two of them were zapped away to 1940's Germany.
The mission itself was very quick, they were in and out before anyone. Five was the one who shot her dead at the desk, her blood splattering everywhere. Five grimaced as he looked at his crime, but then had left. He had dragged Ripley away from the scene who had been very interested in what her brains looked like.
They did many missions together, Five didn't like talking. He didn't want to tell anyone about his family or his secret mission, he didn't trust anyone besides them and he doubted that would change. However it didn't start Ripley talking about everything few and far between. In that regard, it reminded him a little of Klaus and that hurt. He remembered the few things that Ripley let slip out. He was a normal man that had been born in the late sixties, but he wouldn't say anymore than that. He often tried to pester Five about information about who he was, and where he had come from.
Five still didn't let anything slip except once when they were waiting for his target, he told him that he had family waiting for him when he retired. Ripley hadn't believed him and they didn't talk for the rest of the mission after that.
Soon, he would find his family, for now he would just have to deal with this man. They worked together for about two months, until their last mission. It was that last mission that everything went wrong.
It was the first time that Five had been sent to the 19th century, to kill a Father who was going to be one of the designers of the titanic, and to make sure that it wouldn't sink. Well the commission couldn't have had that. It had started like any other mission with Five meeting Ripley outside his room, and then they had zapped into the Irish man's house. He remembered sneaking over the children sleeping on the floor and then pulled the trigger, shooting the man where he slept.
However it was the three shots that rang after that had made his heart shudder. He had turned around to see the three children laying dead, their hands grasped tight as they had slept.
"You bastard!" Five remembered saying grabbing Ripley by his lapels.
"I only did them a service! They might have inherited their Father's gift of shipbuilding!"
"You killed them when they didn't need to be killed!" Five growled. He had then used the briefcase and stranded Ripley in 18th century Ireland.
He had stormed into the Handler's office and glared at her.
"I'm not working with him again, from now on I work alone." He had said, and not let her say a word in edgewise. The only thing she had done was laugh as he walked out of the room.
He had never found out what happened to Ripley because the next few missions later, he had gone back home to his family.
The dark disappeared as Five opened his eyes. He tried to move but found that he couldn't. His whole body ached. He managed to tilt his arm and saw that it was covered in bruises and his suit was almost non-existent.
He thought back to the memories he had just seen. The man's name was Ripley. Although that might have been a codename. It was the first time his older self had shown anything about the commission. The whole time he had thought he had been a monster, of course it wasn't right, but his older self had been doing it for a reason!
Wait what was his thinking? He wasn't anything like his older self. Five tried to pull himself up once again but his limbs refused to move. He needed to warn Allison! He needed to tell her what happened, and how he had well and truly fucked up.
You need my help. You can't win against him, look what he did to you.
Five laughed.
"You left him in Ireland! That's why he's angry and taking it out on me. It's not my mess."
Then give me my body back, and let me fix it.
Part of Five was tempted to let him, to let him fix his mess but then what would happen to him? He would disappear. He didn't want to go, not when he had only really begun to live.
"No I'll fix it myself." He said and managed to pull himself up. He began to pant and leaned against the wall.
Like you tried to save Claire? He took her! He took our niece! He's hurt our family, and you won't let me help! He will kill her like he killed those children in Ireland. He won't hesitate. You don't know him. You have only seen him in my memories so let me help by giving me my body back!
"Well what happens to me if you get your body back? I won't exist. It's my fault Claire's gone. At least let me try and rescue her."
Fine, but if you fail this body belongs to me.
Five didn't say anything. He couldn't move still but he needed to get Allison. She was the only one left who could help. He struggled onto his feet, his legs still aching and felt for his powers. He had to make one last jump, to make it. He pulled on all of energy and concentrated on his powers and then blinked to the courtroom.
As he landed in the courtroom, he saw Allison standing in the booth staring at him. In fact he could feel everyone looking at him. Including Patrick, but he didn't care. He only had one goal in mind and he was almost there. He saw the blood dripping from the floor. A sane person would take him to the hospital but the Hargreeves had never been sane. They had their Father to thank for that.
"Allison…" He said, his voice struggling to speak. "It's Claire, she's been kidnapped." He managed to say before the welcoming darkness came back and greeted him.