5:33pm, April 3rd, 2019
He'd told himself it was easier to go forward in time than back, and that was true. Usually. But he was already exhausted and slipping between the viaducts of the space-time continuum took a great amount of both concentration and energy, particularly when one was towing six extra people in their wake.
If he was too weak to start a jump, nothing would happen; there was neither loss nor gain. But what happened when he had enough energy to begin the journey yet not complete it? That was a question he could have lived the rest of his life not knowing the answer to.
The answer was that the energy had to come from somewhere. If it did not, he would die (as would anyone else traveling in the time stream with him). Thus his power would take what it needed from his body to complete the circuit, and it did.
All-in-all, he's lucky to have hit the right decade, let alone the correct week.
The universe regurgitated them onto the front steps of the academy, spat out like a bad taste and Five was puking almost before his feet hit the ground, every organ in his body trying to simultaneously turn itself inside out. He tumbled forward, just enough brain matter left to throw his arms out and prevent a face-plant onto the cement. He heaved, bile-and-blood taste filling his mouth as he retched, weak and helpless as a newborn.
Until this moment, he'd thought the phrase 'puking your guts out' was just a colorful expression.
But as the Handler had so astutely pointed out, even he had limits. Limits which he'd apparently exceeded to a breathtaking degree.
There was noise distortion all around him, head a multi-colored kaleidoscope of pain flashing in nauseating shades of red, orange and white. He felt unraveled, as if someone had plucked a thread from him and he'd come apart at the seams, leaving behind a twitching pile of exposed nerves, pieces of himself scattered like breadcrumbs from one side of the time vortex to the other. He couldn't even see, eyes swallowed in flickering blue fire.
He wasn't entirely sure, but it felt an awful lot like dying.
The universe just might have succeeded in killing him after all.
Five had an eidetic memory and was very technically conscious, but there wasn't much he'd remember about the day they came back. He wouldn't remember being carried into the house by his brothers and pressed into a bed. He wouldn't remember gentle hands removing his shoes, or loosening his tie so he could breathe. He wouldn't remember the slow procession of bodies trailing in and out of his room, talking in hushed voices.
1:58pm, April 6th, 2019
He slept for two days (that was the official story, anyway).
That wasn't time he could afford (no time, no time, same familiar song) but it's not as though he could have done anything about it. On the third day he rose like an ignominious and twisted messiah, ate every scrap of food in the house then disappeared back into his room to think. He tried to warp there but even after two days the attempt left him feeling weak and dizzy so he was obliged to take the stairs, which also left him feeling weak and dizzy. Wonderful.
He still had a headache. He shouldn't still have a headache, not after two days. Then again he shouldn't have drug six extra people back and forth through time either, so.
The date on the calendar said April 6th, 2019. Six days after the apocalypse and the world was still spinning. There were no fires burning out of control, spewing ash into the sky. No toppled buildings, no rotting corpses. His clothes were clean, the air fresh. He was home and the apocalypse hadn't happened.
They'd done it, they'd won. The moon would shine tonight and the sun would rise tomorrow and neither would be shrouded by orange colored clouds reflecting the light of a thousand burning cities.
He savored it for a moment, just for a moment. Opened the window and breathed in clean air, listened to the sounds of a living world. And if the clean air was technically over a dumpster and the sounds were car horns and quarreling neighbors and a cat in heat yowling at the sky, well. It was still good, still so much better than ashes and dust. This was the world he'd come back to save, asshole neighbors and all.
"Shut the fuck up!" he shouted at them, something akin to happiness trying to insinuate itself under his skin. "Some of us are trying to sleep!"
"It's the middle of the afternoon, jackass!" came the acerbic response and Five found himself breaking into a grin.
"Fuck you!" he shouted cheerfully. I saved your life, asshole.
"Get fucked ya little prick!" Ah yes, he was home.
He shut the window with a satisfied click and then- and then he remembered Ben.
Ben had died (again). Ben was dead (again).
The smile fell from his face as he realized he'd forgotten. How could he forget? In hindsight that should have bothered him far more than it did, but at the time he chalked it up to the headache and having nearly died himself and all that fun stuff.
He wondered if they'd buried him yet; he hoped so. He'd buried enough siblings for one lifetime and didn't relish the idea of starting up again. If not, he hoped they didn't hold it against him if he didn't attend the funeral. He's carried a funeral in his heart for forty-five years; formalities didn't mean much anymore.
He set those thoughts aside as unhelpful and irrelevant. It didn't matter, back to the business at hand. The business was this: it was April 6th, 2019. The apocalypse had been canceled and he knew the Commission too well to believe they would let that slide. Five had to assume they were going to come looking for either answers or revenge and he had to keep what was left of his family safe.
How he was going to achieve that goal he didn't know, but he'd think of something.
He always thought of something.
He started writing on the walls.