Five wakes up in a bed.
An actual bed.
He sucks in a breath- and, for once, he's not inhaling stench of smoke and sulfur- and his stomach clenches.
Is he… really out of that place?
Did it work?
He lies there, too scared to move for fear it might shatter this fragile new reality.
If this is a dream, he never wants to wake up.
So he breathes, unobstructed, and takes it all in. He pinches at the blanket, rubbing the material between the pads of his fingers, relishing his first taste of something soft in a long, long time.
There's no ash hanging in the air, no oppressive heat.
Instead of apocalypse gray, he's met with sterile white.
When he turns his head to the left, there's a window and…
He'd forgotten what it was like to see the sky.
The blue sky, dotted with puffy, white clouds, untouched by the muted grays of the apocalypse.
It's so beautiful, it captivates him.
And then he can't breathe, his vision is blurred, there's a lump lodged in his throat, and… what if it isn't real?
This isn't the first time he's dreamed of an escape from that place.
Maybe this is no different.
If he prepares himself for that inevitability, it will hurt less when it…
Has any of it ever felt this real?
"Dolores?" Five's breath hitches and his heart rate spikes because… she's still back in the apocalypse, he realizes, and… he's sorry- he's so sorry…
She was his only friend and he… he had left her behind.
Except he didn't.
Because she's here, isn't she?
She followed him home.
I never left you, Dolores assures him before his thoughts can spiral any further. But you didn't answer my question…
He thinks back to her question.
"It's real," he whispers. Something slick slides down his cheek. "It's real."
He twitches and something pinches in the crook of his arm.
An IV line, he realizes.
He's in a hospital.
An actual hospital.
It… worked.
It actually worked.
A hysterical laugh bubbles in his chest, but it sounds more like a sob when it works its way free.
He escaped- he actually escaped that damned place.
Another strangled gasp forces its way past his lips.
And then another.
And another.
Five! Dolores snaps, more urgency in her tone, but Five is past listening to her.
Shit.
He can't be here.
He needs to find his family. He needs to find out how much time he has before the end of the world.
Five fumbles for the IV line, disconnecting it, and staggers out of bed, bare feet slapping against a tiled floor.
He almost drops, but manages to catch himself on the bedside chair.
He's just a little unsteady.
That's all.
He's okay.
Five takes a shaky breath and straightens. He's wearing one of those loose gowns that covers almost nothing.
Considering the layers he covered himself with out of necessity during the apocalypse, he may as well be naked now.
He hates it.
This is a bad idea, Dolores tells him.
"Shut up," he grouses.
He knows he's in a hospital, but, beyond that, he has no idea where he is.
Or how long he has.
The jump he did was experimental, the equations were imperfect, and he's had no opportunity to check the date.
For all he knows, the apocalypse comes tomorrow.
And the eye… They took the eye from him.
"What are you doing? You shouldn't be up!"
Five jerks, startled, but it's only a uniformed nurse.
The man looks just as alarmed to see him up and standing as Five feels. He hasn't seen a living, breathing human being in… a long time.
But he doesn't have the time for this.
"Are you okay?" He steps forward, arms extended.
Five stumbles back, so unused to any sort of living company that even this is enough to frighten him, and grasps for his powers.
He doesn't even plan for a destination.
He just blinks.
Or tries to.
He feels the pull as space bends around him, but that's it.
It gathers at his fingertips, but he loses his hold on it almost immediately and it snaps back like an elastic.
He can't blink.
No.
His breaths come in a series of short pants.
"No," he whispers, mind racing.
"Hey, calm down." The nurse closes the distance between them, fingers wrapping around Five's spindly wrists. "You're not even supposed to be up!"
Five wrenches himself away.
Or tries to.
After just barely scraping by for so long, he doesn't have the strength.
"Let go." He claws at the nurse's arm, but it's humiliating how quickly he's trapped in a bear hug against the man's chest. "Let go!"
His breaths are coming too fast, too shallow. There's a band around his ribs, preventing his lungs from expanding.
He can't stay here.
He has to find them, has to warn them, has to save them.
He bucks, trying to throw the man off of him.
Black spots are creeping to the corners of his vision.
Distantly, he hears a cacophony of voices shouting. He can't make out what it says.
It's all just white noise.
Dolores, he thinks, but he can't feel her comforting presence. Dolores! I need you…
Something slides into his arm.
His body tingles, first his arms, then his hands. His vision blurs, and then he slumps backwards into the arms of the person holding him.
/
Vanya never gets visitors.
Not anyone outside of her music students, but it's far too late in the evening for anyone to be taking violin lessons, so the knock on the door takes her completely by surprise.
She approaches cautiously, hesitating before she wraps her fingers around the door knob.
"Hello?" she calls. She does a good job at keeping her voice steady, all things considered, but it's nine o'clock at night and not the best part of town.
Her concerns are reasonably justified, she thinks.
"It's me," an impatient voice answers her query. "Vanya, open the door."
"Diego," she murmurs, grabbing the knob and obeying. She steps aside, so stunned by his appearance that the thought of refusing him entry doesn't even occur to her.
He brushes past her into her apartment.
He's alone, she notes.
Of all her estranged siblings, he's the one she least expected to see, which isn't surprising considering how he hates her guts.
…not that it isn't deserved.
She closes the door behind her and waits expectantly for him to announce the reason for his unexpected visit.
"Five is back," he says, tone rough with emotions he can't hide.
He's always been an open book, even as a child under Reginald Hargreeves' thumb.
It seems that hasn't changed.
A pit opens up in Vanya's stomach.
Her fingers brush the shelf beside her as she steadies herself.
Five…
"What?" she breathes.
It's almost been seventeen years since her brother dropped off the face of the earth and, while she had always hoped he would return, even she had to admit it was more and more unlikely the more the years passed.
"Why now?" she wonders. She doesn't even realize she's spoken aloud until Diego answers with, "How am I supposed to know? I haven't even seen the little shit yet."
It's harsh and Vanya winces, but she understands his anger.
Maybe she had even shared it once- it had been hard to accept that her brother, her confidante, her one true friend, had abandoned her, that he wasn't coming home- but not anymore.
Diego has always had a harder time letting go.
She tries again, "Do we know…?"
"We don't know anything," Diego snaps, impatient, then looks as though he regrets it. He doesn't offer an apology and Vanya has never insisted on getting one in her life- she's not about to start now. "Eudora told me," he says. "She said the station called her."
"So why come to me?"
Diego side-eyes her. "Because Allison is off traipsing about in the limelight, Dad sent Luther to the moon, and…" He trails off.
And Klaus is off in rehab somewhere is what he meant to say, she's sure.
Vanya bites her lip.
Klaus' problem is something she has a hard time thinking about. In fact, she often doesn't think about it at all.
There's nothing she can do to help him and he probably wouldn't want her help anyways.
"So I'm accessible." She can't quite hide the bitterness that seeps into her tone, but she reins herself in before it gets too far.
This isn't about her resentment over being the last choice once again.
This is about Five.
The brother she hasn't seen in over sixteen years.
The brother she loved dearly and desperately hoped to one day see again.
She's finally getting her wish.
Thank God she's accessible.
"Yeah." Diego actually snorts and Vanya thins her lips, keeping silent, because turning this into a pissing contest is the last thing either one of them needs. "Yeah, you're accessible."
If he wants to be an asshole over the book, let him be an asshole.
Vanya just wants to know her brother is okay.
So she lifts her chin. "So tell me what you do know."
It isn't like her to be so forward.
Maybe that's why something seems to shift in Diego's expression.
He softens.
"I don't know a lot. Eudora got a call from the station. Said he just… appeared out of thin air on the sidewalk."
Vanya swallows hard. So they don't know anything about where he's been. "And have they talked to Dad?"
Dad has never been a pleasant topic of conversation for any of them, but especially not her.
Especially not Diego, who fled the moment he was of age.
(Sometimes, she thinks about Luther, still stuck in that house with that monster, because he couldn't accept what the rest of them already had come to terms with years earlier.
Dad didn't love any of them.
He never had.)
Diego shakes his head. "Not a clue. Not like Dad's gonna care either way."
That doesn't sit right with Vanya.
Dad didn't care about them, but he did care an awful lot about controlling them.
"What if he still wants Five?" she asks. "I mean, he was always more interested in Five's powers than the rest of us…"
Even the suggestion is enough to curdle her stomach.
All the awful things their father said and did- she's only just begun to work her way through them.
She tries to think of Five left behind in the Academy and- she can't.
She just can't.
"Well, we're not going to let him have him," Diego says, with such assurance that Vanya thinks it will be easy to get past this. To remember that they're supposed to be brother and sister and not mortal enemies.
Vanya nods, lips pressed tightly together.
With their father as a common enemy between them, maybe they can finally start seeing eye to eye.
And Five…
She can finally see her brother again, finally get answers to where he's been, why he abandoned her all those years ago.
Vanya swallows thickly, blinking back the tears that threaten to fall.
She just wants to see her brother again.