Vanya had been waking up with swollen lips and bruises in strange places. Not that anyone noticed.
Not that she minded. Not in the least.
She woke with insuppressible smiles pulling at her reddened lips. Her hands touching the bruises at her wrists, her hips, her thigh. Reminders that she had been touched, held, exalted.
Night after night, his grip grew tighter. And she made a game of squirming away, just to experience the pleasure of being caught again, just so that he would have to apply more pressure, leave a mark, undeniable evidence that this had happened, that this was real.
She wasn't the only one who wore signs of their encounters. Vanya watched Five's cheeks hollow, the bones of his face growing sharper, his eyes deeper. When he looked at her she could sense an inexplicable smolder of intensity, held just under his skin.
He was building up to something. She knew it, could feel it in the way he grabbed her waist, in the insistent dip of his tongue.
When they were together it felt like he was rocketing toward some unknown, unreachable destination while she would do anything to slow time down. To slow him down.
They had stopped talking about time travel, but he hadn't stopped thinking about it. He had filled the notebook and gone back over it three times, each pass filling more of the margins with ink. The cream of the page nearly obscured in blackness. He had shown her where he hid it, under his bed a loose floorboard had been roughly broken and turned into a hidden cavity. When he was training with the others she lifted the splintered wood and ran her fingers over the catapults and oceans and intersecting lines that went on for pages without perceivable end or beginning.
This is what he held in his mind when they were together, a part of him always in that notebook, working on a level she could never reach.
It was like each time they connected he grew stronger, bolder, more reckless. And she had less chance of getting away, of forcing another chase, of prolonging his presence.
She wasn't surprised the first time he rashly announced his plan to time travel. She couldn't imagine the frenzy inside him not finding an outlet. But it didn't make it any easier to watch. It was over breakfast, Five addressed Dad and dared the others to contradict him. Spoons froze at varied elevations around the table. Dad was mid-swallow. He turned a bit purple during that triad. Five held his own but the submittal Dad demanded was brutal.
That night Five teleported into her room, landing roughly on her bed, his rage a violent simmer coiling every muscle. Vanya didn't speak of her relief as he pushed away her pillow, pinning her shoulder with one hand and capturing her opposite wrist with the other. She could tell Dad hadn't persuaded Five even a little, but his dire warnings had shaken Vanya. Dad had spoken not only of danger, but of certain, unavoidable loss.
Vanya shouldn't have been surprised at Five's second attempt to sway Dad, but she was. She had hoped the first blow up had bought her more time. Five didn't give Dad a chance to cut him off, commandeering the chalkboard and launching into his equations, letting that swirling ocean of numbers speak for him.
There was an eerie pause when Five finished. Dad snapped the chalk from Five's fingers, and in seven quick motions drew x's through a handful of the numbers.
"I did not believe you capable of such foolishness. Your spatial jumps still lack accuracy. If you applied yourself to practicing half as much as you applied yourself to this lunacy we might be getting somewhere. How can you hope to pull off - " Dad seemed at a loss for words as he peered closer at a convoluted S-curve Five had drawn inside a triangle, "Pull off…whatever this is, when you can't control teleportation. Have a seat Number Five. And I wish to hear no more of this."
Five's eyes roved the board, taking in every x, every reason why he shouldn't dream of pushing past the only imposed limit of his power. He kicked his desk chair over on his way out]. Dad resumed teaching without comment.
That night Vanya went to Five.
His eyes were open. His arms behind his head.
"He's wrong," Five spoke to the ceiling.
"I hope he is," Vanya hesitated at the headboard. "Five…"
"Don't say it," he warned, his tone sharp.
She climbed on top of him. Trapping his body with hers.
"What are you thinking?" she asked. He smirked, his eyes moved from the ceiling to her face.
"Something brilliant,"
—-
The third time Five brought up time travel. He kept his approach direct and simple. Vanya was horrified when he struck his knife into the table. Only someone with a death wish interrupted Dad's audiobook fetish.
"Number Five?" Dad's lips pursed unpleasantly.
"I have a question."
"Knowledge is an admirable goal, but you know the rules. No talking during mealtimes. You are interrupting Herr Carlson."
Dad's record continued its slow drone.
"I want to time travel."
"No."
"But I'm ready. I've been practicing my spatial jumps, just like you said. See?" Five teleported to Dad's side.
"A spatial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn."
"Well, I don't get it."
"Hence the reason you're not ready."
Vanya shook her head. She held his gaze, wanting so much to bridge the distance. Even at that moment, with so much unknown, she knew he was slipping away.
When he broke eye contact. Her clenched fists went slack as if he had just slipped through her fingers
"I'm not afraid." Five said, confident, self-assured, cocky. Everything she would never be.
"Fear isn't the issue."
Then why was Vanya so afraid? She could hear the thrum of fear in her veins, a whoosh of blood to her head, unstoppable, relentless.
"The effects it might have on your body, even on your mind, are far too unpredictable. Now, I forbid you to talk about this anymore."
And strangely, Five obeyed. He spoke not one more word as he strode from the room.
"Number Five! You haven't been excused! - Come back here!" Was that dread she heard in her father's voice?
Vanya pushed herself weakly away from the table. Her legs felt light, incapable of holding her up.
"Five…" She called weakly. Her siblings were frantically looking between each other. No one knowing how to react. Dad looked stunned and…resigned. Vanya felt sick. She ran from the table of wooden legs. If someone called her back she didn't hear. All she heard was a tornado of blood in her ears, her heart bumping too fast, her body reacting too slow.
She made it to the street. People flowed around her.
But he was gone.
—-
Vanya woke the next morning with swollen eyes.
Not that anyone noticed.