Notes: So... this is a little sad, I had a long note for this one but at some point I accidentally deleted it and realized too late :p But anyways, for anyone that has experienced a betrayal from someone you really cared about, do you remember having a myriad of very contradicting feelings? At least I know I did, I was so angry and hurt, but at the same time I missed them and worried for them, it's not like you can instantly erase what that person meant to you, right? So that was sort of my mindset for this chapter.

Reasons and Revelations

After the revelation from her mother and Five's failed attempt to escape, Lila had resolved to stay away from the whole thing, she couldn't even stand the thought of being in the same room with her parents' murderer and it wasn't like she wanted to go back to Diego either. Truth be told, she had been avoiding her mother just as much. Why had she waited so long to tell her? Was her obsession with Five more important than her own daughter?

When she had stormed out of the Commission that infamous day, she had been a complete wreck, she had aimlessly trodden under the rain until she had found herself curled up at the top of a building crying her eyes out, she had felt so wretchedly lost, confused and betrayed, but now she just felt numb, her mind fully refusing to go back there, at least until half an hour ago.

She stopped at the entrance of the torture room looking at the message in her hand, tube in the other. "So much for avoiding the Commission," she muttered frustrated at her mother's ability to find her agents wherever they'd be. She took a deep breath and reluctantly went inside the familiar white room.

The Handler was sitting on a chair near Five filing her nails. Lila went downstairs and stood there for a moment as a pang of anger combined with a hint of sadness engulfed her, she didn't want to look at Five, for what felt like too long she had looked forward to visiting this room, to talking with the stupid little shit. She had been such an idiot, her mother had warned her about Five, hadn't she? He was nothing but a lying shit, nothing but her mother's stupid obsession and a ruthless murderer, and yet, she had naively decided to trust him. She shook her head physically trying to push away those useless thoughts.

"Come here, darling," the Handler extended a hand to her.

Lila walked to her mom and bent letting her warm hand caress her face, "hello mom, did you want to see me?"

"I was just worried about you, are you okay?"

She sighed, "I'm fine. Why shouldn't I be?" she averted her eyes to the wall refusing to acknowledge the unconscious man behind her.

"Good, that's my girl," smiled the Handler giving her a few pats in the cheek before standing, "I'm sorry you had to find out that way, darling, but now you know why you can't trust anyone but me."

"Yeah… I should have listened to you," Lila murmured, "and waking him up to taunt him wasn't one of my best ideas either," she accepted remembering the very real fear she had experienced.

"Well, yes," the Handler chuckled and turning her eyes at the woman, asked with genuine curiosity, "By the way, what did you even say to him?"

"…Well, I said so many things really, I was angry," Lila spoke softly avoiding her eyes.

"Come on darling, what did you say? Did you insult that mannequin of his? He gets oddly weird whenever someone talks about it," the Handler mused checking for Lila's reaction. "No? …maybe you said something about that sibling you're spying on?"

"Does it matter? You said you were almost done with him, right, why don't you just finish him off already?" mumbled Lila.

The Handler ignored her, "Whatever you said, it woke up a beast inside of him. I hadn't seen him that driven since… oh," she stopped with realization, "oh no, you told him about the new apocalypse?"

Lila flinched and avoided her eyes playing with some torturing instruments.

"Really Lila? Of everything you could have said, you had to mention that? You could have gotten us killed."

"I…I'm sorry, I didn't think that would be his reaction, who the hell has such a burst of power after being almost dead for three weeks?"

"You don't get it darling… this man is the embodiment of stubbornness, since the moment I met him there has always been one thing ever present inside that head of his, and that is preventing the damn apocalypse."

"But he was barely breathing, he could have killed himself!" Exclaimed Lila still perplexed.

"Well, that's Five for you, there's a reason why we wanted him in our side," said the Handler. "And if I'm honest with you, after seeing him go back to the feral little thing he was before we started breaking him and discovering he can also stop time, I think I might not be done with him just yet," she smirked.

Great, thanks to my stupidity, mother's obsession for him has grown bigger than her loathing, Lila regretted.

The Handler knew Lila slightly resented her for the way she had found out about her parents, so she planned to fix that while the feeling of betrayal from Five was still fresh. "Listen, I was thinking you and I could—," she started before getting interrupted by an opening door.

"Ma'am? There's an emergency in 1941," said a woman poking her head inside.

"Fantastic, just what we needed. I'll be there in a minute," answered the Handler returning her gaze to Lila.

The woman at the door cleared her throat, "It's very important."

"Seriously Dot, we have control over time, can't you wait five minutes?"

"Well I… I don't…," Dot fidgeted in the threshold.

"Ugh, fine," finally the Handler caved in rolling her eyes, "I'll be back in a minute."

"Can I come?" Asked Lila, she really didn't feel like spending a second alone with the killer of her parents.

"Just watch over him for a few minutes, will you? I'll be back soon," the Handler dismissed her, "it's not like he's going to bother you, we upped his sedatives to prevent another outburst of power until I decide what to do with him," the Handler smiled proudly at her little project.

"So you really still plan to use him after what happened?"

"Well, we'll see, him knowing about the apocalypse makes it riskier, but I'm very curious to know more about his new ability."

Lila's brows knitted together with discontentment.

"Oh, come on, it's fine, everyone has a breaking point, we just need to reach that point or force it by other means," the Handler smiled as she put on a very extravagant red hat with feathers surrounding a big candy cane.

Lila pushed away a fleeting sense of pity at hearing the blatant threat in that statement and just nodded vacantly as her mother left.

After the door closed, Lila hesitated before finally laying eyes on the Boy, now that the room was completely silent, she could hear a faint whistling coming from his chest. There were still dried traces of blood coming from his eyes, ears and nose, his cheekbones looked even more evident if possible and his grayish face, covered in a layer of sweat, contrasted with the black marks under his sunken eyes, then she noticed a faint fern-like red pattern in his skin coming from the collar and extending to his neck and arms, weren't those supposed to appear in some lightning strike victims? She frowned, it had probably been around a week in the Commission since the last time she had been there, but if it weren't impossible, she could swear his dropped head and whole posture hadn't changed since the last time she had seen him.

And then, as inevitable compassion started to engulf her, she remembered why she didn't want to see him; when she had found him curled up on the ground bleeding out that night, she had realized that as much as she wanted to deny it, she had grown to care for him, he had become a strange comforting constant in her life, an damn friend, and as much as that betrayal had hurt more than she'd ever like to admit, an unconscious, deep part of her, still couldn't help to ache at seeing him like that. She just couldn't figure him out, why would such a ruthless bastard, capable of killing two innocent people in front of their child, would go to such lengths to protect a bunch of dysfunctional misfits that could barely call themselves a family or take the time to actually listen and give advice to the daughter of his kidnaper. Could a person be able to pretend that much care? What was even the point? And if he wasn't a complete sham, if there was a small part of the person she had gotten to know that was real, then why had he killed her parents? Would he have still killed them if he knew they were hers?

She looked back at the door, maybe this was the perfect chance to get some answers from the little jerk, she hated the idea of talking to him, but the more she thought about it, the more she felt like she needed closure or she'd go crazy, so she took a deep breath, took the collar control and bended to turn a couple of knobs to the minimum.

As she waited for what felt like an eternity, she thought back to a day she had quarreled with her mother. Without even realizing it, she had ended up in the torture room waiting for Five to wake up. And when he had come around and had seen her puffy reddened eyes, a strange frown had emerged in his worn-out face, it wasn't the always present angry frown, this looked softer somehow, perhaps tinted with a little sense of powerlessness; she wondered if that was the expression he used to make when he visited his crying siblings when they were kids. He had just silently listened to her as she vented her lungs out, sulking and screaming about how her mother would never understand her, that she'd never see more than a girl incapable of taking on responsibilities or making her own decisions, and when she was finally done, he had taken a moment, brow deeply furrowed while he considered the right words, before answering with a serious expression.

"So, who cares what she thinks? Who cares about the Commission? You are smarter than most people here, and definitely the most powerful around, trust me, whether you want it or not, soon enough you'll be faced with decisions that will impact the entire world."

"You sound pretty confident about that."

"Well, you learn a thing or two if you live long enough… powerful people like us, unfortunately, will always have to take responsibility for making the tough choices at some point," he had answered with what sounded like a very tired sigh. "Listen, you're not like the scum in here and you still have your life ahead of you, you should just leave this shithole while you still can, find some people you can actually trust to have your back."

"You said that to me before, well, something very similar."

"Did I? Frickin' drugs must be frying my brain if I've become this maudlin and I can't even remember it," he had retorted with a half-smile.

"Or maybe you're just getting decrepit," she had smirked back.

"Well, decrepit is still better than emotionally stunted like you and my siblings are."

She felt her eyes stinging at the memory and kicked a bucket muttering, "Damn it, I hate your stupid guts!"

"Vanya… Ben… where are you? …Anyone." Five croaked suddenly twitching. The way he had whimpered made him sound unfairly vulnerable and broken, "Please, please be alive…"

An uncomfortable feeling assaulted her again, so instead of caving in, she took a bat from the wall, dragged a chair to sit in front of him and poked at the wound in his chest waiting for a reaction.

Five's eyes blurted open and searched frantically around the room, his brain hardly able to catch up to his body, then his hazy eyes set on her.

"Hey pumpkin, did you have a good rest?" Lila's voice dripped venom.

Five seemed more out of it than she had ever seen him, "…L-Lila? I didn't think I'd see you again," he slurred.

"Well, this must be your lucky day then."

"Lucky hm? I don't think lady luck likes me very much," he chuckled, immediately regretting it as a fit of weak coughs rattled his body. Between the wheezing, the clammy skin and the coughs, it was easy to tell an infection had settled in his lung. "If she did, I would have died with my family in the apocalypse," he whispered almost inaudibly looking at nothing in particular.

Lila wasn't sure if she had heard him correctly, but she pushed that thought away and with a voice filled with acid replied "Well, I can't blame her, who would like your sorry ass?"

"She's right, you know? There's nothing left of the old Five now. …Not like there was much to like to begin with," Dolores' voice resonated shattering Five even further; during the apocalypse, when he had let everyone down, when he was about to give up, she had always believed in him, she had bickered with him many times, but she had never given up on him like this, leaving him alone to drown in the dense fog of unbearable self-loath that was wrapping around his mind right now.

There was silence, no witty retort like there used to be, so Lila searched for his eyes, there was a deep cloud of doubt in those drugged blue orbs before he looked down rasping to try and hide it. That caught Lila by surprise, she had seen her mother use the machine to torture other people before, but she had never actually stayed to see them break like this, so before she could stop herself, she blurted, "okay fine, your stupid family probably does."

"They shouldn't… they wouldn't if they saw what I am."

"And what are you exactly? Do you really expect me to believe you're truly this selfless bastard moping for his family and willing to almost kill himself to save them when you're actually nothing but a damn murderer?"

"Yes, I'm a killer, but I would gladly lay down my life for any of them any day," he whispered back without losing a beat, a feeling that even the deepest depression could not quell.

Lila was speechless for a moment, there was no drop of sarcasm or bravado in his voice, actually, it sounded like the most honest statement she had heard from him, and that alone had been enough to break something within her making her tear up. She dropped her head and after composing herself for a minute, she stood up and rifled around the cabinets until she found what she was looking for, she prepared a small shot of epinephrine and turning off the knobs completely, injected the epinephrine in Five's port, she only needed a few minutes, but he needed to be fully awake for this. If he so much as moved a finger to try and escape, she'd just kill him then and there.

Five immediately felt his body react to the epinephrine, his mind already getting a little less cloudy, and frowned at Lila in surprise.

"Wha—?"

"That's bullshit," she sneered dangerously, "do you expect me to believe you're able to feel that way when you killed the parents of a child in cold blood?" She spat, all her hatred surging back.

"What? I honestly got no idea what you're talkin' about."

"Ronnie and Anita Gill."

"I'm sorry, but that still means nothing to me."

"1993, East London. You hog-tied them and you shot them in the head."

"…The flower merchants," the memory was slowly coming back to him, and then his expression distorted into one of horror and absolute shock, "They were your parents?"

"And they never did anything to anyone. They didn't deserve to die like that." Lila said unable to hold back the tears, no wonder she hated him.

"You're right, all right? I killed them. But I killed a lot of people over the years… It was all just a job. It was never personal," he tried to explain, he probably shouldn't be this harsh, but his mind was a mixed mess, the depressants and Dolores' voice swamping him in guilt while the adrenaline pushed him to defend himself with rationalizations, both things spiced with a blinding headache hammering at the back of his eyes.

"'Never personal', my ass. Yeah, I've killed. It's always, always personal," remarked Lila hotly.

"That's why you're not cut out to be an assassin," he whispered oddly gently.

"Bet your life on that?" she said lifting the bat.

"You wanna blame someone? Blame the Handler. She faked the kill order," he paused trying to collect his thoughts, at least the rush of adrenaline in his system was helping his brain to connect the dots. "The Handler gave me the kill order. She came on the job, which she'd never done before. You're Commission. You know execs never go on jobs, but that day in London, she was there. Ask yourself why."

"Stop trying to muddy the waters." She scoffed still unable to believe his words, why would her mom do that? She had always been there for her. Yet, something at the back of her mind wanted to hear what Five had to say.

"I never realized what she was up to at the time," Five coughed weakly, "but... now it all makes sense," he continued as his frown deepened and his eyes shone with realization or perhaps only reflecting the fever raising.

"What?"

"She never cared about your parents... She was looking for you."

"Why?" she hissed bemused.

"Because… you're one of us," he whispered raggedly, his eyes becoming increasingly heavy and the headache growing worse, his body starting to shake as the effect of the epinephrine and initial shock started to wear off.

"No, I… I have no reason to trust you, you're nothing but the cold-blooded bastard that killed my birthparents. All this time you were just nice to me to get me on your side, weren't you!?" she shouted not wanting to hear another word.

Despite the epinephrine wearing off, the headache and the unnerving feeling of not getting enough air, as Lila walked to the machine, Five felt a rush of fear, not for his future, but his siblings'.

"Lia, please wait, I I'm sorry okay, but please just listen, hate me all you want, let me rot in here…," he took a ragged breath.

"As if I wasn't planning on doing that."

"But please, you've gotta help my family, if they help Vanya and leave back to 2019, things should be alright. Don't do it for me, do it for Diego."

Lila scoffed, "he means nothing to me and neither do you."

"Come on, you and I know that's not true… and just by listening to you, I can tell Diego cares for you too, in fact… knowing him, the idiot might actually love you," he contemplated for a moment. "On the contrary, the Handler's not capable of loving anyone, you're smart, I know deep down you know that. The Swedes? She didn't send them; you could have gotten killed for all she knew; did she look at least slightly upset when you told her about them?"

Lila hesitated for a moment before assuring, "who cares about them, they would have never been able to kill me anyway. Now stop with the crap, pleading doesn't suit you Five, just give it up."

"Just listen to me, you could run away with my family. Start over. They don't have to know about your connection with the Handler, the Commission or me, just tell them you found a briefcase, in fact, you could tell them I found you and gave you the briefcase before dying or whatever you want, Diego knows I know about you. You'd be safe among people that could actually be your family," he said with wide feverish eyes that were fighting to stay open.

Lila snapped, "Stop! You're full of crap, my mother is my family, she's the only person I can trust!"

Five's head dropped, he had brought this upon himself, his only chance to save his family was doomed because he had blindly become a monster to get back to them. If he wasn't so broken and half dead, he would probably be laughing frantically at the dark irony.

"I'm sorry… I truly am," he breathed unable to stay awake any longer.

Lila stood up ready to yell at him that an apology made no difference, but his head had already dropped to the side, a fresh tear slipping down his closed eyes.

She stood there looking at him in bewilderment, her mind an absolute ruckus. Then a familiar noise approached to the door, the Handler's high hills. She quickly rubbed off the remaining tears from her eyes, and returned the knobs to where they were meant to be.

"Darling, did you miss me?" entered the Handler with a satisfied smile.

Lila avoided looking at her so she wouldn't see her puffy eyes. "About time you came, I was dying of boredom here!"

"Yeah, I guess Five is not that fun anymore," said the Handler getting closer and noticing the slight change of position and the trace of a tear on his face. "Did anything noteworthy happen while I was gone?" She added with an arched eyebrow.

If Lila had been paying attention, she would have fabricated an explanation, she could have thought a million things, but she hadn't, she was too occupied by the realization that she could hardly stand listening to her mother's voice right now.

"No, nothing at all," she muttered walking to the stairs, "I better leave now, Diego is going to have a lot of questions if I don't show up soon."

"Sure dear, don't keep him waiting," chanted the Handler with a crooked smile, something had happened again and Lila wasn't willing to talk about it, she didn't like it, she didn't like it one bit. On second thought, maybe the time to get rid of Five has come.

Notes: If you've been following my story, thank you for still being here and if you're new, thank you for getting till this chapter, you guys rock! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this angsty chapter!