We're almost at the end now! Please, enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think!

They landed with a crash in the foyer of Maison du Lacroix, home of the prestigious family of the same name. A chill ran down Five's spine. The only sign of life in the house was the lack of dust and cobwebs. The marble floors were pristine, the entryway chandelier still glittered in the faint moonlight filtering in through the windows. It was too quiet. He knew Henri and Anna Lacroix, as of October 31, would be going on an excavation trip to Greece, which opened up a myriad of possibilities for Vienna. But there was no music coming from the ballroom, no loud blaring from the television. The Handler was already there.

Quietly, he led his family through the foyer, into the lounge. His mind's eye replaced the empty chairs at the round table in the corner with the image of Henri playing poker with his associates, among which Reginald Hargreeves could be found. The arrangement of loveseats and armchairs in front of the fire, where Anna indulged in idle gossip with her society friends, was perfect, untouched. He ducked his head into the dining room, finding it as cold and unoccupied as the other rooms. No signs of the staff in the kitchen. No sign of Vienna and the Handler.

"Holy shit."

Ben's voice was faint. Five followed it into the downstairs library. "What did you find?"

"More books than anyone could ever find the time to read."

Five closed his eyes, counting backward to keep from hitting his brother. For Ben's sake, he hoped no one discovered the upstairs library. They had more important things to do than gawk at a room full of books.

Dragging Ben along with him, he moved across the mansion to the conservatory. It was, bar the library, Vienna's favorite room in the house. Bile rose when he saw the state of it. She'd been there. A book on the history of the Acropolis of Athens lay pages down on the floor, several of the pages folded in weird angles. A wine glass, containing blackberry juice, stood abandoned on the side table beside the rocking chair she always curled up in. She'd been ambushed, pulled from her seat. Five's fists clenched, and he very nearly struck Klaus when he rushed into the room.

"You have to see this," he panted, hunched forward with his hands on his knees, "There's blood."

Ben and Five followed Klaus to the staff's quarters, where Allison was waiting for them. Her eyes were wide with terror. In their superhero days, they'd seen a lot. But the heartlessness evident in the carnage before them… it was beyond anything she'd ever believed she'd see. The maid was riddled with bullet holes. The butler was attached to the wall with a scary amount of knives. The chef had been decapitated.

"Fuck," Five barked, punching the wall beside him. Vienna's tutor, an elderly woman named Abigail, had been shot. One to the head, one to the heart. He'd liked her, and he knew Vienna had loved the old woman as a second mother. Kneeling beside her, he closed her eyes. "Has anyone seen anything that might help us?"

"Five!"

He was on his feet in an instant. "Vienna!" Five, flanked by Allison, Ben, and Klaus, rushed outside. The Handler stood by the edge of the forest, a shining beacon in red against the dark trees and white snow. She had Vienna seized by the hair, a gun pointed at her pulse point. "I'm here," he called crossing the garden, "Let her go, she's got nothing to do with this." The handler laughed, pressing the muzzle of the gun harder into Vienna's throat.

"Au contraire, Five, she has everything to do with this," she stated, "Of course, she served as excellent bait to get you here, but I'll have more use of her even after you're dead." She shook the girl, drawing a pained whimper from her. The Handler laughed again as she saw the little traitor she'd been forced to call her daughter, followed by the monkey hybrid and the hidden potential one. "Your reinforcements are unnecessary, I assure you," she said, clenching her fingers harder around the girl's hair, making her shriek, "We both know you won't let anything happen to darling Vienna, not when she could so easily… get lost in the crossfire."

There was nothing he could do. She was right. A fight could lead to Vienna getting hurt or even killed. He couldn't grab her and jump them to safety, not if the Handler's grip on her hair was as tight as he suspected it was. "What do you want?"

"Well, there are several things, but for now I want to see you dead."

"Right, you're going to kill someone who'll just teleport out of the way," Diego snorted, "This ain't our first rodeo, lady." Another chilling laugh. God, he wished he could just send a knife her way and get it over with.

The Handler smirked. "Oh, I won't have to kill him," she said slowly, "He'd do just about anything for this one." She pulled Vienna in front of her, using her as a shield. She'd seen it. Five would sooner die than let anything hurt the girl. "Come on, Five," she taunted, "Surely you've figured it out by now."

Five's thoughts were racing a mile-a-minute. He recalled his conversation with Lila in Austria, how they'd theorized that the Handler was looking for people with their abilities to use as weapons when she took control of the Commission. But that didn't make sense. She had to know that his siblings would never surrender their powers to her to use as she pleased, especially not if he died by her orchestration. Lila didn't have powers and would die fighting. And Vienna… she didn't have powers. She was born on October 31, 1989, not October 1. While birth-certificates could be doctored, there were pictures of Anna Lacroix while she was pregnant. Vienna was just like everyone else. Yet… the Handler had said that she'd find a use for Vienna even after she stopped being bait to lure him in. "You've made a mistake," he stated, though he was far less sure than he wanted to be, "Vienna's not… she can't be."

"Oh, she never told you?" The Handler shook her head in mock-disappointment. "And here I thought the two of you were as close as two people can be." Ah, let the games begin. Just the slightest tear in the trust between the two, for drama. Just to see him suffer. "Miss Lacroix is the scion of two rather prominent families, the Lacroix family, and the Stein family," she informed him, idly gesturing with the hand holding the gun, "While the Lacroix family brought only wealth, the Steins also brought something a little different to the table."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Annoyed by the interruption, the Handler shoved the girl forward while maintaining a hold on her hair, causing her to scream. Nodding in satisfaction, she turned back to Five. "See, the Steins were rather famous for being able to glimpse into the future," she continued, "Seers, all of them." She looked between Five and the brunette in her hold. Though he made a valiant effort, he couldn't hide the shock. Or the hurt. Time to drive the point home. "Which is how the little miss knew you'd wind up stuck in the apocalypse."

"No," Five breathed, unable to believe what he was hearing, "That can't be true." He searched Vienna's gaze. Behind the fear, barely covered by the longing, there was defeat. No. She couldn't have known, if she had she would've warned him. They didn't keep secrets from each other. "You lied to me?"

"Don't listen to her, she doesn't know what she's talking about," Vienna insisted, scratching fruitlessly against the sleeve of her hostage-taker's coat, "It's not what she thinks it is, please, you have to believe me."

"You lied to me!"

Vienna growled. "I did no such thing Five Hargreeves," she bit out, digging her nails deeper, "I may have neglected to mention it, as the subject wasn't ever brought up, but I never lied." She could see the incredulous expressions on the faces of his companions and was inclined to agree. There were a time and a place for the discussion they needed to have. While she was held hostage by a woman who clearly knew Five, in the freezing cold garden of her ancestral home, was not it. "It's not… it isn't seeing into the future, not anymore," she admitted, "It's just instinct."

"It's an omission of the truth, which damn well counts as lying," Five argued, "You knew—"

"No, I didn't," Vienna said sharply, "Do you really think I would keep something like the apocalypse from you, especially after…" She trailed off, suddenly unsure. Had it meant anything to him? She hadn't seen him since, hadn't had a chance to talk about what the repercussions would be for the both of them. "I've never lied to you, Five," she said quietly, voice barely audible over the distance between them, "If you'd asked me if I knew you were going to wind up stuck somewhere in another time, I'd have told you yes." Vienna smiled fondly, even as he stared at her as though she'd slapped him. The question wasn't how she knew that he'd leave, it was how everyone else seemed blind to the fact that it was bound to happen. "You've always been so impatient, Five, it's okay to start small," she chuckled, though it was watery at best, "How many times over the course of our knowing each other have I said those exact words?"

"Can we please get on with the hostage situation now?"

Five blinked at the Handler, breaking out of Vienna's spell. It was dangerous, how easily he forgot the rest of the world when she spoke.

Allison scoffed at the Handler. "Hey, this is an emotional time for them," she scolded, "At least let them figure it out."

It's okay to start small. A plan was forming in Five's mind. He glanced at Lila, giving her the slightest nod. Not so slight that it was lost on the Handler, but it didn't matter that she held Vienna closer to herself, thinking that it would deter him. He had a plan. It was okay to start small. Vienna's survival would depend on him doing so. Rather than decades, or months or weeks or even days… smaller. Minutes. Seconds. Even less. "Do it." And then he was moving through time.

The next thing anyone knew was the sound of a gun firing and the Handler's pained scream. Vienna's face was pressed into the crook of Five's neck, though she still squeaked when the felt the blood spatter dot her hair with red. He held her there, knowing that even though he couldn't prevent her from hearing it, he could protect her from seeing when Lila finished the Handler off. The woman was clutching her bleeding shoulder with her uninjured hand, the other hanging limply as he had broken her fingers to force her to release her grip on Vienna.

A twisted feeling of satisfaction nearly overwhelmed Lila as she forced the Handler to kneel. For years she'd lived with the knowledge, unable to do anything because the horrid creature had been protected by the Commission. No more. Never again. "This one is for Ronnie and Anita Gill." Her finger squeezed the trigger. The sound of gunfire echoed around them. The back of the Handler's skull was gone with the wind.

For several minutes, everything was silent. "I'm going to take us to your room," Five whispered, making sure that Vienna couldn't turn around to see, "You're going to take a shower, a long one, while we clean up here." She nodded against him, holding on tightly as he jumped them away.

In her room, Vienna shakily loosened her hold on him. "I heard her," she whispered, voice trembling, "I was in the conservatory and I heard when she… she…" Five stopped her, a gentle hand wiping away tears she didn't realize were falling. Before she could contain them, sobs wracked her body. Arms wrapped around her, holding her close until her tears were reduced to hiccups and the trembling mostly ceased. "You should go help the others," she mumbled, "I'll be okay."

"You will," Five confirmed, "Take your shower, I'll be here when you're done." Vienna nodded, disappearing into her ensuite bathroom. Once the door was closed behind her, he sighed, leaning back against the wall. She was safe. The Handler's revelation still had him feeling as though the world had shifted and then not falling exactly into place when it shifted a deep sigh, he jumped into the garden.

Luther and Diego were shoveling bloodied snow into the forest. The body was gone. He didn't ask what they'd done with it, plausible deniability and all that. Instead, he chose to concede the fact that, while they were both idiots, they'd had more… expanded love lives than him. "What do you do when the person you love turns out to be something different than you thought they were?"

Sharing a look, they turned to him. His hands and the parts of his face that hadn't been turned into Vienna's hair were still spattered with blood. "Well, that depends on whether they're actually different or if you just perceive it that way because you learned something new about them," Diego stated, leaning against a tree beside his brother, "She'll probably think you're different once you tell her about all the shit you've been through too."

"But that's different."

"How?"

Five glared incredulously at Luther, unable to fathom that any of his siblings could be so stupid. "Because I aged forty-five years, I actually did change," he spat impatiently, "She didn't, she's still the same Vienna she was when I last sa…" He trailed off, resisting the urge to shoot both his brothers as they smirked and eyed him knowingly. How the fuck had he not seen that trap coming? Why the fuck were they making sense? Diego's goddamn nonsense about perceptions actually made sense. Vienna hadn't changed. The only thing that had changed was that he knew her secret. But why would she keep it a secret?

"Only she can tell you that."

His gaze snapped up. He hadn't realized that he'd been thinking out loud. Rather than acknowledging that they'd been helpful, death would be more pleasant after all, Five turned and headed back into the mansion. "I'm going to check on the others."

Allison looked up when Five came into the staff's quarters. "Klaus is off with Vanya, burning anything with evidence that can be burned," she told him quietly, "Ben is getting more cleaning supplies, I think, and Lila went to make a call to the Commission about the Handler." Though he nodded, she could tell he was distracted. Had he been his usual acerbic self, there would've been a comment about how they needed to hurry up, or that their clean-up skills were subpar. She gave him a wary smile. "Something's on your mind," she stated, following him to the kitchen, "I hope you're not thinking about what the Handler said, Vienna had as little say in what she was born with as we did with our powers.

"It's not that," he protested, "Well, it was, but not anymore." Five tapped the countertop thoughtfully. Allison might be The Rumor, but she wasn't one to spread them. He trusted her to stay silent as much as he would trust Vanya or Ben. Still, the opening up thing… he hadn't done that in forty-five years. Not really. "You asked me if I've ever thought about having kids," he murmured, eyes locked on a bowl of ornamental fruit, "I did, once, the last time I went to see her."

"And now," Allison asked gently, "I know you're technically too young but… do you?"

It was a heavy question, far more significant than just a sister asking a brother if he wanted to have children someday. She was asking him if he wanted to have them with the girl upstairs, the girl Five had known at the tender age of thirteen that he couldn't imagine the rest of his life with. And that was an answer on it's own, wasn't it? "Yes," he replied, "Someday." If only it was that easy. Time was finicky. No matter how much he wanted a future with Vienna, one where he could retire from the whole saving-the-world-while-being-an-assassin thing, it wasn't possible. "We can't stay here," he admitted, refusing to look at his sister because he knew the sympathy on her face would break him, "We would be risking running into our past selves and that… well, time's complicated enough as it is."

"Why can't she come with us?"

"I can't ask her to leave everything she's ever known just for me."

"Sure you can." Allison patted his hand comfortingly. "If there's anyone who's earned the right to be selfish, it's you, Five," she said, "And, if Vienna doesn't want to stay with us, at least you'll know, rather than leaving her here and forever be wondering if you did the right thing." She gave him her best encouraging smile. He deserved happiness. After everything he'd done to make sure that they got to live, that the world got to live, he deserved a chance with Vienna. "Go talk to her," she ordered, "Explain everything to her, find out where you stand, then ask."

Five took one look at his sister's smile, for the courage he'd never thought he'd need, then jumped upstairs.

When Vienna stepped out of the bathroom, wearing a fluffy robe over a ratty pajamas, Five was lying on her bed. Her hair was still damp, hanging loose down her back. "You have something to get off your chest," she stated simply, slowly taking a seat next to him, "What is it?"

"Did you See that, or am I just transparent?"

"Five… it's not like that."

"I know, I'm sorry." He sat up, taking her hand in his. "Actually, I don't know, and I'd be grateful if you could explain it to me." Anything to delay the inevitable rejection. Five knew he would be asking a lot. For her to leave her family like that… it wasn't fair, no matter how absent they would become. "Help me understand it."

Vienna sighed. She untangled their hands and held his open palm between them, tracing the lines with the tip of her finger. "My great grandfather, Samuel Stein, was the last in my family to really See," she told him timidly, "Mother says that grandfather sometimes would just know to walk into the kitchen right before something caught on fire, but we, she and I, we just… get this feeling." Running her fingernails gently along the length of his forearm, she watching him shiver with the slightest of smiles on her lips. "Kind of like that, just… everywhere," she explained, "We don't know what causes it, we can't actually tell why it happens."

"But you got that feeling with me."

She nodded. "At first I thought it was just because I had feelings for you, but then it started happening when I looked at articles with you in the paper." Vienna let him grasp her hand again, enamored with how both his hands wrapped protectively around hers. "The feeling started to resemble fear and I didn't know why and I went to bed every night wondering if I could do anything to help you."

Something clicked for Five then. He remembered how suddenly she had asked him to take her to Egypt, how frequently she'd beg him to take her to all sorts of places and climates. "You prepared me."

"I knew you well enough to figure out it had something to do with your powers," she replied, nodding, "I knew you were impatient, knew you wanted to time travel, so I just… made sure you'd know how to act in different situations."

"Thank you." Vienna looked up at him, surprised, and Five quirked his lips at her. "Now that you've told me your story, I think I should tell you mine."

The rest of the Hargreeves family, and Lila, smiled when Five came downstairs with Vienna. Allison gave him a knowing look, which he barely acknowledged, his main focus being getting all nine of them to a safer time and place in one piece. Vienna left a folded piece of paper on her father's poker table before taking Five's hand in one of hers and Vanya's in the other. Once he'd made sure that everybody had a tight hold on each other, Five opened the vortex.

"Alright, let's go."