Klaus rubs his eyes because all this furtiveness is starting to give him a headache. How did anyone manage to be this secretive? Was every version of Five just - like that, or did the Commission offer courses? He sighs and drops his hands. "Okay look, I know keeping secrets is like, your brand or whatever but could you maybe be a little less vague? Because in case you haven't noticed some seriously weird shit is going on and I think we're entitled to a few answers before we blindly follow you anywhere."

Five watches him, something dangerous curling around the edges of his mouth and for a moment Klaus doesn't know if he's going to get scolded or hit, each scenario seems likely but finally Five just nods, face smoothing out once more. "It's a long story and we don't have time for the details. The Commission will be back, just like they came back last time. Just like they always come back, and we can't protect you here. So please, let us get you somewhere safe, and then we promise to tell you everything we know."

Klaus wants to believe him and almost does. But so much has happened he's not sure he can take anything on faith anymore. (And it would probably help Five's credibility if he would stop referring to himself in the third person; it doesn't do anything to soothe Klaus' misgivings about his mental state.)

"Where could you possibly take us that would be safe from the Commission?" Allison asks, which was a really good point, actually. Where did you go to hide from people who could monitor all time and space?

"We have a- a safe house of sorts; it should be secure enough. For a little while anyway." He adds after a moment's thought.

"And how long is a little while?" Diego presses, asking the smart questions Klaus totally would have asked himself if he were a little less confused.

"Until they figure out how to breach the time lock," is Five's unhelpful answer.

"Right," Klaus mutters, "you know that's not actually being less vague."

"Klaus-" Five begins, and then seems to change his mind, giving himself a small shake. "Let's just get out of here, okay?" But he still heads up the stairs, which was the opposite of down and probably not the direction they should be going if they want to leave in a hurry. Not unless Five had learned how to fly, like some sort of fucked-up, reverse Peter Pan (then again, given everything else that's happened, he might have.)

"You said you had to look at your old room," Luther calls after him, hulking body filling the stairwell as they follow him up. "What are you looking for?"

"Answers. You guys aren't the only ones with questions."

"Answers to what?" Klaus complains, pissed off at the fact that while Five was technically answering their questions, he wasn't really telling them anything. Then again, that was Five, wasn't it? He was an asshole like that. (An asshole that had just technically killed himself to save them, but still.) Klaus isn't expecting an answer and that's good because he doesn't get one. What he gets is dead silence as he reaches the top of the stairs, his siblings hovering uncertainly in the doorway to Five's room.

"Five-" he hears Vanya say gently, "I'm so sorry."

That piques his interest and he nudges his way past Diego, peering over Allison's shoulder. Five's staring wordlessly at the floor, at the broken bits of plastic that littered the carpet. He recognizes the pieces, the polka-doted blouse filled with the shards of something that had once been deeply important to his brother. "Oh, shit-" he gasps out, clapping a hand over his mouth.

Dolores had been smashed into hopeless pieces. Klaus looks from the mess to Five's face, bracing for impact because there was no world in which this was a good thing. "What- what happened?"

Five gives Dolores a considering look but his expression is wiped clean; Klaus can't read anything in his face. After another moment he shrugs, turning away. "Don't know, doesn't matter."

The really horrible thing is he sounds like he means it.

"Whoa, wait-" Luther says, laying a dangerous hand on Five's shoulder. "What do you mean 'it doesn't matter'?"

Five shrugs his hand off, eyes scanning the walls, the mathematical gibberish scrawled all over in an increasingly illegible hand. "It's just a hunk of plastic, Luther." He sounds disinterested, as if he really didn't care at all.

They share a look, the confused alarm of a group of people who know something is deeply wrong but don't know exactly what. They should have a word for that look, Klaus thinks. They use it often enough.

Diego stares at Five. "She was important to you, man."

"She was important to one of us," he corrects.

Klaus regards him warily, because of all the things Five's said and done over the past couple hours this is the one that really has him worried. The one that doesn't fit. Five assuming he knew better than them? Check. Five being a reticent asshole? Definitely check. Five swooping in and saving their lives in a dramatic fashion and then passing out without bothering to explain anything? Well, it hadn't ever happened exactly like that before but it was still pretty on-brand for their brother, so check. But a Five who didn't care about Dolores, who referred to her as 'a hunk of plastic'...he can buy the story about clones before he can buy that. It makes him wonder how many memories this Five has of himself; if he recognizes Dolores at all. How much did he actually feel for any of them, and how much was just Five pantomiming his way through his own life?

How much of their brother had actually returned to them, and how much was just...a ghost?

Vanya looks between Five and the hellish wall decor, studying him as he studied it. "You said 'answers'- you meant these equations, didn't you? They mean something."

"They aren't equations," he answers distractedly, fingers tracing over the faded chalk symbols. "Not the way you understand them. It's a code."

"A code?" asks Allison and Five nods.

"We developed it in the apocalypse. It uses a mathematical base instead of an alphabet. Unreadable, unless one's familiar with advanced physics and quantum theory. Even then, you need a key..." his voice trails off as he stares at it. "Damn," he mutters after a moment. "It's not here."

"What's not here?" Klaus asks, thinking back to the time when Five had been ill with time sickness, the weird obsession he'd had with scratching those random equations all over everything. Walls, books, anything he could get his chalk-dusted hands on. At the time Klaus hadn't really thought much about it; he'd had more important things to worry about. Now though...

The realization is accompanied by a twisting sensation in his gut, like he swallowed a live eel and it was squirming around in there, trying to get comfortable. All those weeks and months, all those endless equations they were so hasty to erase. All the notebooks and papers, covered in Five's mad scrawl, the whole time...he'd been trying to communicate.

Christ, Five, he thinks at his brother, I'm sorry. We didn't know. He wants to apologize, say the words out loud, give them purpose so they'll stop rattling around in his head like pennies, but it's obvious Five isn't paying attention to any of them, rummaging through the room instead, flipping through books and papers so fast Klaus is amazed he could read anything at all.

"What are you looking for?" Vanya asks, and he glances at her with a distracted frown.

"The location of the Prime," he answers nonsensically. "The other one- the one we killed; we think he knew. The twins said we'd written it down."

"The Prime?" asks Luther, looking as confused as Klaus felt.

"The twins?" asks Allison, also confused.

"Written what down?" Diego chimes in and at least Klaus isn't the only one who has no damn clue what's going on.

"Five, their brother says, waving his hands at them in agitation. "Your Five, he's out there somewhere. We need to find him."