Monday, November 18 1963, 7:09 pm
Life is definitely tough for street cats. Especially those in the alley behind the bank and Commerce and Knox: the ones who believed that one day the comings and goings of all those people tearing through space-time would stop. Really: very few kitties have seen as much as they have.
*Crack!*
As my feet hit the uneven ground between the high brick walls, one of the little felines runs off, hissing offended meows at me. Is it the same cat as in 1961? I'm in no condition to wonder. As soon as I appear in the night lit by the few street lamps, I burst into tears, as I haven't done for a long time.
When was the last time I gave in to such open grief? Probably in the distant year 2019, the day Pogo revealed to me that Reginald Hargreeves had referred to me as fucking 'Omega'. But I can't help it, as if my chest wants to burst from what just happened at the Glen Oaks workshop. I don't know what Lloyd did next, I don't know where Klaus ran off to. But my heart tightens with pain as I crouch where I am.
Maybe Mark heard some noise, because the still homeless man immediately left his flat cardboard on the corner and comes over in my direction. I don't want to talk to anyone, I just want to be alone. As he approaches, my arms wrap around my head and I bury my face there. But Mark comes closer and closer, possibly worried about me. I'm grateful. But I can't. I just can't.
*Shhhwwwooo*
Perfectly consciously this time, I generate a sphere of energy around me. The same one that had protected Jill from the fall of a railing, before leaving to Mexico. The same one that had saved a cow in India, in Rishikesh. I hadn't done it again ever since. And this time, I've just raised it to protect myself, from this outside world that just can't seem to let me find peace. Mark is startled; I suspect he's frightened by this unknown phenomenon. He backs away, rubs his eyes, maybe wondering if he's even drunker than usual. And finally, he flees, mumbling words I cannot hear clearly.
"SHIT!"
In spite of myself, I scream into my fists and curl up, more and more, trying to dry up the salty water trickling down my cheeks. I tell myself that I could have avoided all this, that I should have. That there would have been a way to talk to Lloyd sooner. Or to Klaus. Or both. That maybe I should never have told Klaus where I was living. Or on the contrary, that I should never have bonded with Lloyd. My heart wavers back and forth, and I can't find the answer. I can't think of a possible happy ending. No turning back is possible anyway. And through the globe-like energy around me, I finally hear light footsteps.
"Geez. Rin."
I don't say anything, I keep my head in my arms, but that young, slightly nasal voice is easy to recognize. I'm not even surprised to find him here. How many times have I hoped to see him or the other Hargreeves in this brick-walled alley? This time, I don't tell myself that Five is a dream. I can feel the golden particles of his power, even with my eyelids closed.
"It's okay, Eliott!" he shouts to someone, toward the top of the building behind us. "We know her, you can go on with your... repairs."
And he kneels, just on the other side of the energy curtain between us.
"There's been a very atypical magnetic anomaly," he tells me through it. "It knocked out all of Eliott's sensors on the roof. Are you okay?"
I still don't know who Eliott is. I also don't know if Five knows that I was the one who caused the 'shock wave', or if he thinks it simply affected me too. I try to say something, but more tears come. Until - finally - I manage to say to him:
"I'm so lost, Five... I just... want to go back to where we belong".
These are words straight from my heart. I once told Allison that I'd always feel at home if I could collapse on the same couch as Klaus again. Tonight, I don't even feel like I can do that anymore. I hear Five sigh, then keep silent for a moment. And finally, as if he needed to recite those lines over and over again, he utters into the night:
"Tell me about a complicated man, muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost".
I look up a little, my red eyes above my crossed arms. He speaks a few more words, which I can't properly hear, and then :
"Where he went, who he met, and the pain he suffered in the storms at sea... and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home."
I don't know why, but his words instantly soothe me, as I identify them as coming from Homer's Odyssey. One of the few books I remember from my short time in high school. All of a sudden, my heart seems to calm down. Maybe it's because I feel a kind of parallel with our wanderings through space-time. Maybe because I believe that Five bears more responsibility than any of us, as if at the helm of the ship. And maybe... because there's this muted hope that - like Ulysses and despite all the ups and downs - one day we'll finally be able to go home for good. I blink.
"Five..."
Suddenly, I release my grip on the energy and dissipate the sphere, causing it to crash to the ground like a fluid. In the blink of an eye, there's nothing left. No sound, no hallo, no shimmer. Just the dim light of the streetlamp above me, as I keep hugging my knees.
"Do you really think we'll make it? Going home."
He shakes his head for a moment, honest about the fact that he doesn't know. Over time, I came to understand that Five doesn't reason in certainties, but in probabilities. That he knows better than anyone that each of our breaths here can cause a change tomorrow. But I still feel that he believes we can return to where we came from. To the distant future, in the 'quiet' space-time where Granny would be watching a drama. One more tear comes to my eye, but I suppress it with a sniffle.
"I'm doing everything in my power to," he tells me, but I sense a seriousness in his voice. "We're going to need what's left of our cognitive abilities, and we're going to need it fast, because another Apocalypse is coming in seven days' time."
I say nothing, still sniffling as if my brain were blank, and he adds:
"I was there, I saw it. But I think you know that."
I look at him in a troubled way. For months, we had this connection, he and I, because of the vortex we opened together to escape here. Wherever he's been in the timeline, I've seen through his eyes events that I probably shouldn't have been contemplating. Events that, most of the time, I'd rather not have had an echo of. And this vision of a new Apocalypse - the very first I 'dreamt' of - I still see it intact when I close my eyes, sometimes.
I remember the chaos, the gunfire on Avon Street, the desperate attempts of everyone: Luther, Allison, Klaus, Diego, even Viktor and Ben. Of my own helplessness in front of the flames and the intensity of the battle. And I remember the downpour of nukes, raining down on Dallas from a cloudless autumn sky, just like the one we are having these days.
"Was it a nuclear attack, Five?"
He remains silent, and this - in itself - is a heavy, terrible answer. Then, finally, he says to me, noticing that I tremble:
"It seems that for some reason, the Cold War is about to suddenly become... boiling hot".
Another silence falls over this confession which isn't one. I know it's true: I've seen it through his eyes. But even if I didn't go very far in my studies, I'm pretty sure the world didn't end before I was born.
"I don't know what we've changed," he tells me. "But somehow the world took a turn that wasn't the one in our timeline.
"You... you don't know why?"
I shudder. Because Klaus and I alone could have already induced so many changes, just for having existed within the 'Children'.
"I'm working on it," he whispers. "I have to trace all the causal chains."
I've heard this before, three years ago, when he was desperately trying to prevent the first Apocalypse. And I have reasons to think that this had only strengthened, if not initiated, the end of the world. Sometimes, I'm afraid. Afraid that Five's actions are not there to prevent Doomsday, but to bring it about, as if what was supposed to happen happened, with the precision of a ticking clock. As if he himself embodied everything he hates about the Temps Commission, down to his very bones. This time, though, there's a parameter that didn't exist the first time around, and he tells me:
"I think it's regrettable... but urgent to get in touch with Dad".
At no time had it occurred to me that Reginald Hargreeves might be alive, even though this is self-evident. It's as if my unconscious had wanted to believe him dead forever, even in his own past. But he isn't. Of course Hargreeves is alive. And even though a rush of anger and resentment seizes my throat, the rationality I've got left whispers to me that Five is right: if anyone is in a position to know more about this new Armaggedon, it's probably his father.
"I've found everyone, Rin," he adds, standing up.
I open my eyes again and stare at him, struggling to believe what I've heard. "Everyone? You found everyone?"
"Well, almost everyone. I didn't need to look for Klaus, since I found you."
This word would almost make me cry again, tonight, and I shake my head somewhat bitterly. My guess is that Klaus will suffer again for not having been actively sought out, where all his other siblings were, and me too. But I can't think about that now, no. It hurts too much. And I ask, my heart clenching:
"Did you find Viktor?"
"Yes."
Five's blue gaze is serious, almost black in the darkness of the alley. We took Viktor along with us, fully aware of what he might be capable of triggering again. However, the nuclear warheads we saw falling from the sky were not of Viktor's making. And Five adds:
"He's as fine as he can be, living on a farm. He doesn't remember anything and has only had... quite limited manifestations of his power."
I breathe out in relief. And joy, deep down. Viktor being 'all right' is something I've hoped for so often. I could easily shed more tears, and Five adds:
"I found him thanks to Eliott's radars. Eliott - here - who would have been a big fan of X-files, in our time".
With a smirk, he points to the guy who'd been tinkering with satellite dishes on the roof of his building, as if they were his babies. He's climbed down a ladder on the side of the facade, and is now walking over to us with a curious look, half embarrassed, half ecstatic. And I understand that he was the guy Mark had mentioned once, the one who occasionally dropped him a snack.
"Everything's pretty much working again up there," he says.
He gestures to his building, on top of which I can see the row of radars, very high-tech for their time.
"But the TV sets in the showroom... All the printed circuits inside have burned out, only three of them are still working".
My lips pinch with guilt. How ironic. I've spent so much time sweating blood and water to repair such devices, and now I might have silenced all the TV sets in the neighborhood. And Five looks down at me again, noticing the pathetic fact that I'm wearing slippers and no coat. I hate to inspire pity. But with my tear-swollen eyelids, it would be very difficult to prevent it.
"You can sleep at his place, I guess," he tells me, while the man called Eliott adds: "If you can stand Diego shacking up all night long with his British girlfiend."
"No, I..."
Still trembling, I painfully get to my feet, steadying myself by resting a hand on the Commerce and Knox wall.
"...I'm going to find somewhere else to crash tonight."
To be perfectly honest: no, I can't stand to hear Diego get laid. To sleep in the middle of yet another TVs graveyard. Or dealing with my insomnia next to Five, perfusing himself with coffee in order to turn over in his head all the variables of our imminent death. I need silence, and time to think.
"As you wish, but..."
Five has figured out that chaos has struck in my life, but I know he won't ask how or why. His factual offer is probably the biggest demonstration of altruism I've ever seen from him. Even if it's not his own place. He doesn't insist, turns in Eliott's direction to go back inside with him, and tells me over his shoulder:
"...I'm thinking of getting the whole family together tomorrow."
"Don't count me as part of your family, Five. And for your information, I need... to ~not~ see Klaus's face for a little while. If possible."
He suppresses a wry smile and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"So that's it? It took you - how many years - twelve? Thirteen years? To get enough of him. Sorry, I missed the whole beginning."
My teeth clench.
"Shut up."
"You really are the archetype of resilience Rin. I'm not giving you a day before going back to him."
"Really, Five, shut up. Let me enjoy my damn twenty-four hours of peace."
No matter how much I deny it, he's right, and it'll be the same for Klaus: he'll get drunk, he'll stuff himself with menudo or tacos as he always does in such circumstances, and tomorrow night it'll all be forgotten. I won't admit it just yet, I'm too sad about Lloyd. Five almost laughs, which is rare. So rare that it's insulting. So I turn on my heels too, heading for Avon Street, as stubborn as him. I don't look back; I know exactly where I'm going to sleep. But before I teleport there, I hear him say an ancient Greek word behind my back:
"οἴκαδε !"
Notes:
οἴκαδε (oíkade), in ancient Greek, literally means 'to home'. In this chapter, it can clearly be interpreted with several meanings. For ultimately, amid the fluctuations of space-time, where is exactly 'home'? Deep down, Rin already knows: she won't stay angry for long.
The parallel between Five's actions and those of Ulysses in the Odyssey is clearly emphasized in the series, as he desperately seeks to bring his family back to their former era. This chapter takes place just after the series' scene at the Mexican Consulate, at the end of which Five calls out to Reginald with a quotation from the Odyssey. A myth that the Hargreeves were forced to hear as children, as compulsory evening reading. Reginald too, no doubt, compares himself to Ulysses. At the end of his 'sailing' (with little regard for his crew...), he hopes to see his Penelope again.
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