Five completely ignored the knock on his bedroom door. He had been ignoring them, all of them, for weeks in favor of staring at the clock on the wall opposite his bed. It had stopped a few days earlier but he knew exactly how much time had passed. Three weeks, four days, eleven hours, fifteen minutes and nineteen seconds had gone by since he had been shown the proverbial door. He had counted every second since, just to avoid thinking about her. Grace had been the only one daring enough to enter his room, though many attempts had been made by the others over time. His mother simply left a tray with food in his room once a day. Sometimes it was empty when she retrieved it, other times it was left untouched. Not once did he stop counting. The wall his bed was stood against was covered with etched markings, one for every minute that passed. Five knew he was not taking care of himself. He knew that locking himself into his room, only leaving it when he jumped into the bathroom, was not healthy. He also knew, though he refused to acknowledge it, that he was waiting. He knew that if he backed away far enough from the damaged wall it would be more than just minutes. At some point during his self-imposed solitary confinement, he had come to fully understand that everything he did, he did for her. The missions, hindering the apocalypse, eating, sleeping and breathing, he did all of it for Gwen. Gwen who had all but thrown him out that night three weeks, four days, eleven hours, seventeen minutes and four seconds ago. He etched another mark onto the wall. Still waiting.

While her brother wallowed in his own misery, Vanya was just about done. She knocked again, unsurprised when no response came. Allison, Klaus and Ben stood with her, all of them sharing worried glances. Diego had given up on working Five and switched to trying to talk with Gwen instead. He had since reported that the blonde girl was surprisingly difficult to find, particularly alone. So Vanya, feeling partly responsible for the fallout, had enough. "Stand back," she muttered, channeling the strange scratching sound on the other side of the door, "and cover your ears." Finding the connection, feeling the fibers of the wood press against the sound waves, Vanya blasted the door off of its hinges. Her family gaped at her. Five stared at her but seemed otherwise unmoved by the intrusion. "Get your pathetic behind out of bed, Five," she demanded, snatching the switchblade out of his grip, "because Gwen is apparently done waiting for you to come back." He frowned and she almost cheered at the fact that she had gotten a reaction out of him at all. Covering her emotions, she pointed the blade at him. "Tristan Carmine's in town," she continued, "Apparently to attend a very important dinner regarding who he will be escorting to the debutante ball in a few months." The growl was barely audible and Vanya could barely restrain herself from sneering at him. She gave the blade to a still shell-shocked Diego and crossed her arms, giving Five a pointed look. "Now, I believe there's only one eligible socialite who lives in the city rather than in some manor upstate."

There was no time for anyone to react before Vanya was pressed against the wall, Five's fingers wrapped tightly around her throat. "Don't talk about her," he growled darkly, "I don't want to hear her name ever again." He felt numb. Numb with the understanding that she was gone. He had lost her once and barely survived. He was not sure he wanted to as the image of Gwen and the faceless figure of Tristan Carmine floated in his head, cozied up on the couch in front of the fire in the Silver Townhouse. He felt numb. Then he felt sick. He had made her a promise. He had promised her that it would be her and him for the rest of their lives. "Get out," he whispered, letting his sister go, "Get out and take the door with you." He had no time for their interference. He had a promise to keep.

Gwen jumped in surprise when she heard the familiar, dull pop. She put her book down, deciding that her Shakespeare essay could wait, and pulled her knees up to her chest as she looked up at him. The sight of him in her library brought tears to her eyes. Five looked as terrible as she felt. He was paler than usual and the blueish bags under his tired eyes had her wondering when he last slept properly. Not that she had been doing too well after their fight either. It was weird, sleeping without him after several months of having him there. They stared at each other, neither making the first move. Just because they were in the same room, ready to confront the lingering anger and insecurities they carried, that did not mean that the fight to see who would cave first was over.

"I'm not sorry."

"I know."

"I'm miserable without you."

"I know."

"If you had gotten hurt," he muttered, voice breaking, "I don't think I would've made it."

Silent tears ran down Gwen's cheeks at the implication of his words. But she refused to back down. "If she had been forced to live in fear of herself for much longer, she wouldn't have made it either," she replied thickly, emotions she had tried to suppress crashing over her in waves, "That's why I did it." Gwen did not want him to apologize. She knew that he was traumatized from his time in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, had seen when he had found everyone he had ever cared for dead and half-way buried in the rubble. She could never ask him to apologize for letting those memories get to the better of him. Never. But she refused to stand for the irrational fear Vanya was subjected to by her family, all because they could not, would not, help her.

"I love you," Five whispered, taking a step closer to her, "And I'll be honest, if you go to that dinner with Carmine I will kill him." He watched Gwen's eyebrow furrow in confusion and immediately understood that he had been tricked. However much he tried, Five could not find it within himself to be angry with his family. While the bridge had yet to be completely fixed, at least he was getting somewhere. "I knew, when you met them after we killed Reginald," he explained, "that you would end up helping out a lot more than we deserve." Gwen gave no reply. He walked a little closer, feeling trepidatious the closer he got with no reaction from her. "I was afraid that you would trade me for one of them and when you went behind my back…" He broke off, looking up at the ceiling as he stubbornly fought against the stinging in his eyes. He was choking, choking on his emotions and the mere idea that had he waited much longer she would have chosen someone else. He flinched in surprise when a cool hand came to rest on his cheek while another settled on his chest. "After losing you the first time…" Gwen silenced him with a gentle kiss. She knew, of course she did.

They had never actually spoken about his insecurities. Five liked to pretend he did not have them and Gwen indulged him because she knew him well enough to understand that there would be a time when he would open up to her. Hearing him talk in his sleep during nightmares, the images she saw in his mind whenever they had not seen each other for a while, it all contributed to her putting together an idea of just what he was so afraid of. He had lived without her for years, with nothing but the mangled remains of the city to keep him company. Gwen knew that he was afraid that she would leave him by choice, shun him for leaving her. She had no idea how to convince him otherwise. "I don't think I could leave you even if I wanted to," she whispered, doing nothing to keep the tears from falling, "Not after everything we've been through, not after all the promises we've made to each other."

"I'm still not sorry," he replied, burying his face in her hair, "You put yourself in danger and I have a right, as someone who loves you, to be upset about that." Five felt her nod and breathed in her scent, trying to ignore the urge to replace it with his own. They had been apart for so long that the lingering trace of him that usually followed her around was gone. At the moment, he figured it was more important to finish repairing the damage before he ravished her against a bookshelf. "I should have listened to you before I yelled."

Gwen nodded, sighing. "I should have slapped you and forced you to listen."

"Can we please try to avoid fighting like that again," he asked, daring to let a tone of mischief sneak into his voice, "I try to save my temper for Luther, you know that." Her laughter was silenced by his kiss. He had crossed into a territory he had never ventured into before, not even with her, and the need to make himself feel better by bringing her to the brink of an orgasm as many times as she would let him before he pushed her over the edge, his name falling from her lips in a scream, was overwhelming. They had yet to cross that final line. And when they did, it would not be in the third-floor library. So he settled for falling back onto a nearby couch, pulling her with him. Five felt as though no time had passed as he maneuvered them so he was on top, kissing down her throat as one hand undid the buttons of her blouse with practiced ease while the other hiked her skirt up her thighs. He needed to assure himself that when Tristan fucking Carmine saw her in school the next day, his scent would still be clinging to her. There was nothing gentle about the way he touched her, nothing caring about the bite marks he left on every patch of bare skin he could reach. Though Gwen's hands were clenching around the pillow behind her, Five felt the buttons on his own shirt come undone and he almost felt insulted that she still had enough wits about her to use her powers. He indulged her long enough for the dark gray fabric to flutter to the floor. Then he took complete control, alternating between kissing and biting down her chest and abdomen, settling comfortably between her thighs.

All thoughts of the fact that her mother was just downstairs and could walk in on them at any moment were forgotten as Five devoured her. Gwen struggled to keep quiet, which only served to spur her lover on. She longed to be able to give back, to be able to make him feel as good as she did. However, Five's goal was to remind her that he would always prioritize her as well as remind himself that he was the only one she would ever allow to touch her the way he did. So Gwen let herself succumb to the sensations, not enough to make a sound but enough to let him know she appreciated his ministrations. She came apart at the seams, colors bursting behind her eyelids as her mouth fell open in a silent scream. Quivering, she felt Five grin smugly against the inside of her thigh and, had she been able to, she would have rolled her eyes.

"Good to know I haven't forgotten how to do that," he quipped, kissing her deeply as she continued to recover from her orgasm, "You'd never let me live it down if I had." Distracting her with another kiss, he slipped her underwear into the back pocket of his pants. He did not necessarily need a physical reminder of their encounter, it would still be fresh in his mind when he returned home to grab a cold shower, but it did help boost his ego just a little. Pulling away from her took nearly all of his willpower. "I should get home, just to assure them that I'm alive," he murmured against her lips, "but if you want, I'll come back later."

Gwen gave him her best pout, knowing what it did to him. "I'd rather you didn't leave at all," she replied, "I can feel you, you know." She rolled her hips against his and Five cursed colorfully. To her disappointment, and his visible relief, the sound of her mother calling her name stopped her from further tormenting him. He jumped them, and his discarded shirt, into her bedroom where he left her with a kiss and a promise of later. Gwen fell back onto her bed, smiling widely as she stared at the ceiling.

In hindsight, Five realized that he should have put on his shirt before jumping into his room. Normally, that would not have been a problem. With no door, however, it became a different matter altogether. Especially since all of them were still there, even though he had been gone for nearly forty minutes. An awkward silence fell over them. Vanya and Ben both looked scandalized while Allison and Klaus seemed vaguely impressed. Diego tried to focus his gaze on anything he could find except Five and Luther's eyes were firmly trained on his toes. "I'll be in the shower," Five finally informed them, moving around his siblings, "If you need something, don't."

Diego found his brother toweling his hair dry fifteen minutes later. "So, a contractor is coming over later this week to replace your doorframe," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets on his hoodie, "so maybe it's a good idea for you to stay at the Silvers' until then." He had so many questions and all of them made for an awkward conversation. He lingered in the doorway to the bathroom, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as he tried to figure out how to even begin. Finally, Five turned to him with an exasperated expression on his face.

"Yes, Diego?"

Before he could stop himself, Diego blurted out the first question that came to mind. "How does one go about resuming a physical relationship with someone after being separated for a long time?" Five gave him a perplexed look and he tried to figure out a way to explain that would not make things worse. Coming up empty, he sighed and sat down on the closed toilet seat. "I slept with Vanya in the old timeline and then everything went to hell and now I don't know how the fuck to tell her that I want to do so much more than just kiss her."

"Ever tried using words?"

"Funny."

"Wasn't trying to be funny, I have no idea what you're talking about."

It was Diego's turn to be surprised. "But you and Gwen…"

"Only actually started a physical relationship in this timeline," Five replied, "and there wasn't much talking, I assure you." Diego frowned and the shorter of the two rolled his eyes, crossing his arms across his chest. "Look, you've had a girlfriend before, right?" A nod. "Well, then you probably managed to get past it before, yes?" Another nod. "Then why the fuck are you torturing me with this," Five exclaimed, throwing his hands up, "when you already know how?"

Diego groaned in frustration. "I just don't want it to be awkward."

"And this isn't, you say?" Five scoffed, fed up. "Diego, do you love her?" His brother nodded and gave him a look that clearly stated that it had been a stupid question. Growling, Five shoved Diego out of the bathroom and pushed him down the hallway until he stood in front of Vanya's door. "Then lead with that." Sick of his brother's lack of spine, the fifty-nine-year-old teenager knocked on the door and jumped back into his room, listening as Diego sputtered an excuse to a clearly bemused Vanya. He smirked as the girl apparently took things into her own hands, the sound of a door slamming shut followed by a dull thud reaching his ears. His smirk turned into a soft smile as he remembered that he would be spending his night with Gwen by his side.