As Five returned to his seat and adjusted his lab coat, he cleared his throat at Doc. "What are the chances that the Durango will be the same in our world?"

"Probably high. 98%? The Durango wasn't part of every Five's timeline. Only a few of ours went that far in the scientific development. My world, before all of this, was driven by science. We quickly evolved in our technologies as Hargreeves Labs used the Marigold as energy. It powered our electricity, water filtration, to even processing food waste." He lifted his head away from the journal and stared at Five. They met eyes as he continued, "But turns out Hargreeves didn't keep the Durango as top secret as he would have liked. A rogue lab student found it and drank it, thinking he would receive 'special abilities.' Obviously, it turned deadly. I stole my sample when I interned for him. I just took it in a vial wanting to study it, but before I could even use it using the lab equipment there, the world kind of ended." He said, sheepishly.

"I haven't had the chance to even think about it until right now. I'm going to be honest, I forgot all about it until Lila mentioned it." He plugged in the results of the Mass Spectrometer to his computer. "But what I see right now... is that the Durango doesn't really shift or change unless there is a catalyst that's added. The Marigold creates the change. So, chances are it should be the same as long as it's before the Marigold starts to fuse." He pushed the monitor towards Five.

"Thanks to your generous donation of your blood, I extracted some of the Marigold. I separated it to different phases. Here are photos." He pointed at the series of photos taken under his microscope. "In phase 1, the Durango starts its search for the Marigold. Look how it spreads and frays out? It's like it's actively searching and pulling towards the Marigold, like magnets. This is phase 2, where the Durango links itself to each Marigold cells. They start to pair up and duplicate its cells to find more Marigold. Lastly, phase 3, is where they are done binding with each other and continue to grow to find the Marigold at a larger scale. See how it fused into one? There is no beginning no end, they're one now." Doc said inquisitively. "Now, watch the screen." He pulled a live feed of the microscope. Five watched him whir his wheels to the pipette and dropped their new vaccine into the bound Marigold and Durango. It was bubbling and fighting to leave the Petri dish. It gave a small hiss as the vaccine hit it, but saw no change. He dropped another with no avail.

"Nothing. It's like it's rejecting it. It damages it only by a little but they bind back together so fast that it doesn't react." He looked back at Five and confirmed his findings. Five peeled his eyes away from the screen and looked directly at the dish. Doc closed it and it looked much smaller in person. "But I put a little of this Durango," he pulled his pipette away from the test tube and slowly poured it in a new dish. He slid it under the microscope and looked at the screen with Five, "and an equal amount of our vaccine on top of it, and look, look." He excitedly pointed as his other hand squeezed his other pipette empty. Five saw the blue vaccine eat away at the Durango. It looked like it was disintegrating the yellow substance, and watched it hungrily eat it away.

"Watch what happens, when I put too much." He grabbed more of the vaccine and let a singular drop fall in. Five couldn't stop staring at the reaction. The blue started to fight with each other, trying to extract what was already taken. After a few seconds, it had been manically trying to leave the dish as well. "We need to get the dosage right, or it will attack its host."

Five furrowed his eyebrows and he did the mental math of it all. He breathed deeply, trying to keep his anxiety down, and shook his head as he said, "There's, what, like a .5% for the margin of error?"

"Um..." Doc was madly scribbling on a loose paper next to him. "Yeah, something like that? We need to get it right to the decimal of a thousandths place." He smiled at Five, but in return, he received a heavy grimace. Doc didn't invest much of his emotions in this plan but didn't want to show it. This wasn't to save his world and found it hard to care too deeply about it.

Five felt his chest tighten under the pressure as it rose. He pushed it down as far as it could and quietly swiveled away from the monitor and tried to calculate the necessary dosage. The room fell silent as they continued on with their work. Only speaking up when absolutely necessary. They double and triple checked their math, and ran it again through the computer. In the end, they had the new, shimmering vaccine in a syringe. It was capped and surrounded by metal to make sure it didn't break. They placed it on the lab table and sighed together at the finished product. Five finally looked around to the lab to find it messier since they first entered it. Five really felt the exhaustion hit him and he'd kill for a decent cup of coffee, even would have settled for the Diner's. He desperately wanted to lie on a flat surface to close his eyes.

They broke away from each other, after hours of working silently. Five rose to his feet, and for second, worried about his family and Lila, as they ventured into an apocalypse. As soon as he sat down on the couch, pushed Doc's leather jacket away, and laid his head down on the arm rest, he felt a small shake. It wasn't like an earthquake or Doc bumping into the couch. It felt like it came from above him and soon followed a large 'BOOM' as it shook the room again. Glasses clattered around the room, papers flew off its messy pile, and lights flickered. Five shot up when he heard the explosion. Lila. He shared a knowing look with Doc and both took off their lab coats and headed to the door.

Klaus shook with vigor and tried to remain calm. All of Sloane's instruction were muffled through his ears ringing and tried of put weight in his legs but it easily gave out. He slumped against the wall and tried to focus on the present. Before he could try again, he felt Luther's hand roughly grab his arm and pull him up, practically dragging him through the dusty road. He remembered how to use his legs and started to sprint with Luther. He quickly turned back, feeling the tags bounce against his pace, to check on the rest of his family. He saw Diego with his arms above his head running past him. Viktor was followed next and saw the blue that glowed around his eyes with his fist clenched, trying to draw it out. Allison and Lila had panic in their eyes and scrambled them to try to spot the next one if it ever came. Sloane pushed the end of the group towards Luther and yelled, "In there!" and pointed at a door.

They pushed against each other as they filed in through the door. Luther had to rip it off with its hinges to gain access and pushed it back over the opening, creating another barricade around them. Sloane climbed the stairs to peek through a small window. She kept them quiet as she scanned around the area. "It looks like it came from the east. I don't see any more firings." She eased a bit and let out a small sigh. "Doc would kill me if I lost his strays."

"Since more and more people escaped the compound, they started randomly bombing all over the place. At random hours, at random locations, trying to lure us out. It also helps to keep fear, it's a powerful tool. The unpredictability of their attacks keep our troops overworked and thin." Sloane climbed down the stairs to check the west side. The room was filled with heavy air as they huffed their panic back down. Their adrenaline coursed through their veins and Viktor felt everyone's power fill the small room. Viktor noticed that Sloane's stomach was seeping blood through the bandage and onto her shirt.

"Let's try to make it to Doc's lab. We'll be safer there." She gestured at Luther to open the door again. As he took it out, Sloane carefully scanned the area and the sky. She whispered, "Good thing is, no guns. We ran out of bullets five years ago."

She lined them up against the walls and she slowly peeked through the corners and navigated them around the buildings. Sloane stopped the group as she heard a small rustle and shifting foot steps. She pulled out a serrated knife and waited for the sound to continue. She saw the shoes peek out and didn't put the weapon away. The rest of the family tightened at Sloane's reaction and prepared for anything to come their way.

Sloane noticed the frayed and crazy hair of Doc before she noticed Five behind him. She eased and rushed towards him, pulling the family along. She heard Doc sigh in relief and gestured them towards the door. They rushed through the door and felt safer in the staircase. Lila rushed to Five and she hugged him. It was brief but Five felt his anxiety drop down to his chest, where it belonged before. She was okay, she was alive, and she was here. He grabbed her hand and pulled her downstairs, his feet rapidly tapping down to the lab doors. He wanted her behind closed doors, even if he knew that'd do nothing to stop an explosion. He heard it slam shut and Sloane quickly turning the wheel to bolt it shut.

"God, that was really close. Only a mile away from us. I felt it whizz past me." Sloane sighed and heard her voice was still guarded and strict.

Five kept squeezing Lila's hand. It was turning her white, but she squeezed his hand back. She rubbed his chest, reassuring him of her safety and looked up at his eyes. It was swimming with worry but soon his brows relaxed as he scanned her as saw nothing wrong. He noticed her new shoes and a fresh tear on her knees. It was bleeding slightly from her fall as Sloane pushed her out of the way. She only noticed when Five stared at it and felt the pain slowly trickle in. Five sat her down on his lab chair and cleaned up the wound through the new tear. He pushed a gauze in and dabbed it clean. "Looks like it's just a scrape," as he winced at the bleeding site.

Sloane was bleeding profusely now. It had soaked her shirt more than when she first knocked on the door. She peeled her bandages away to find the two stitches ripped and opened once again. "If I have to throw away another shirt, I swear to God."

She took off her jacket and her shirt to inspected it closely against the mirror. She winced as she pulled it open to see if any more damage was done. Luther stared at the half-naked Sloane, he wanted to look away but his worry for her grew. She wore a large and simple binder that pushed everything down and attached it close to her body. He stared at her face as she winced, her pulled lip as she decided to do another stitch, and her hair that curled around her. He wondered how Five had done this for seven years.

"Doc, you are going to have to stitch this up." She said, looking at him by the reflection of the mirror. She saw him nod, and laid on the cold, metallic lab table, pushing everything away as she hopped on top of it. She laid down and pulled a bright lamp next to her wound. She stared at the ceiling with a blank face, waiting for Doc to come around.

Viktor, Klaus, Allison, and Diego sat on the couch, squeezed in to accommodate the four people, in a three-person couch. They watched in concern and whispered to each other trying to process the explosion and the bleeding Sloane. Once they realized that the small lab echoed their whispers all the way to Sloane's ears, Diego grabbed a random notebook and a pen to write, 'We NEED to get OUT OF HERE.' He underlined twice under the word 'here' and passed the notebook with the pen on top, to Allison. She hurriedly grabbed the pen and wrote, 'Need to finish the plan first.' Klaus took the pen, and wrote, 'I can't do that again,' with a shaky hand. Viktor finally took the notebook, and scribbled 'Sloane kept us safe, we're fine. Stick with plan. Can't lose more time.' They passed it down to Diego to read. When it returned, it was filled with their various handwriting. He nodded at them and gave Klaus a look. He wrote, 'You don't need to. Stay put if you want," and showed it to Klaus. He continued writing, 'But Vik is right. Need to finish what we started.' He considered writing, 'I want to hug my kids,' but didn't. He showed it to the group again.

Five and Lila were on the other side of the lab tables, trying to fix Lila's wounds as they kept glancing at Sloane laying a foot away. They saw her toned body, but it was clear that it was toned due to the lack of food. Her ribs flared in and out as she struggled to breathe and winced when Doc inspected the wound.

Doc pulled the hanging magnifying disc with a bright LED light lining it. The pulled it closer to her wound and touched the nearby abdomen to see the full picture. "Hey, big guy," he said at Luther, who was unable to sit and hovered around them. "Be useful and grab that med kit in that cabinet." He didn't look away from the wound but pointed the back cabinets. He pulled two gloves from a box nearby and pulled out the old stitches out of her as she winced.

Luther scrambled to the cabinet and pulled a large red box with a white cross on top of it. He set it down by Sloane's feet and opened it for Doc. "Take out the needle and thread. Sterilize with the alcohol in there." Luther happily complied and dipped the needle in the alcohol using the tongs that came with it. He shook off the alcohol and waited until Doc asked for it. He kept staring at the wound and hurt his chest to see Sloane trying to not show any emotion. They briefly met eyes, but Sloane looked away before he could read into it.

Doc grabbed a red and brown liquid and spread it over the opening to sterilize it. He tried not to get too close to the wound site, but she still winced in pain. "Sorry, just ran out of painkillers. We're going to have to do this raw." Doc reached for the needle that Luther was holding. Luther tried not to look surprised at Doc's tone. Like this happened every day. Like he had seen worse without painkillers.

"It's fine. Just do it already." Sloane snapped back at him.

He stitched three times, away from the previously ripped skin. Every time he pierced her skin again, Luther felt himself wince and his family tense their shoulders with her. Sloane didn't make a sound. She disassociated staring at her reflection against the mirror. Doc finished and looked satisfied at how neat his knot was. He wiped it again to sanitize it and told her to sit up so he could bandage it again. He pulled away from the table and took out his gloves to throw it in the trash. He grabbed a new set. She tried to sit up and fell back against the table. Luther reached out his hand and offered it to help her up. She hesitantly grabbed it to pull herself up. She finally showed her pain when she reached her upright position. Doc carefully lined the gauze against her direct site and pulled the white bandage around it, using the entire roll. Doc tapped her legs to signify he had finished, and she jumped off the tall table.

She sighed and walked towards the back of the room, opened a metal locker and grabbed Doc's shirt to put it on. She didn't care that it was too big on her and carefully shimmied into her jacket.

"Well, now that's done. We've figured out the vaccine." He nodded at Five. Lila snapped her head back at Five to make sure it was true and Five smiled back at her to nod. Five picked up the blue vaccine, now in a metal syringe. "This is it." Five said to the room. "We need to inject it to Jennifer while Viktor pulls the Marigold out of Ben. I've matched the dosage for her, but we have a very slim room for error." All their journey, their travels, their research that narrowed it down to this.

"Now all we have to figure out is the time travel..." Five muttered while pushing his hair away. He set the syringe down and flipped back to his time travel equation.

"Oh yeah. I was thinking about that," as Doc joined Five to look at it. "I think we can program the train to follow this. It'll be a one shot though and you would have to avoid yourselves." He glanced at Five. "We can physically change its direction to travel back in time. Less of a chance getting lost when you can set it to a specific course. We just need to adjust the landing point as your original timeline."

Five started to think through this new plan. He could apply the same math and science to go back to any point in time. This didn't limit them to just 12 hours and opened a possibility for more time. He heard his family gain excitement as their plan slowly fell into place.

"We need more time to figure this out. It's not gonna be simple. I mean we're talking about changing the program for a train that can travel through the multidimensional timeline. The math is out of your reach." Doc said, muttering. "I can still use this though," pointing at the hastily written equation.

Five was so tired that his brain lagged behind Doc's words. He gave a delayed reaction to the back handed compliment. He churned his brain all day and felt an invisible nail pushing through his skull. Doc noticed the tire in his eyes and offered to start again tomorrow.

By the time they reached the underground haven, it was dark. The marketplace was lit by small oil lamps, string lights, and small handheld flashlights. The foot traffic died down and the group navigated much easily. Five wore the surprise on his face and reached for Lila's hands, afraid she may get lost amongst the crowd. "It was crazier earlier." Lila whispered back to him.

Five milked every second of his cold shower. By the time he was done washing the day off, the timer read 30 seconds. He let the water free fall over him and closed his eyes. Lila had replaced his clothes with fresh ones and folded the jacket that tied around her waist on top of it all. He smiled and carefully changed. His jacket was grey and warm from being around her all day. When he reached into his pocket, he was surprised to find five sticks of meat and gladly finished two at the same time. Lila waited for him outside the showers and laughed as she smoothed over his wet hair. He gave a surprising nod and muttered, "It's not bad," as he finished swallowing it.

"Oh, you should have seen Allison's face when she realized it was rat meat." She threw her head back in a laugh and Five couldn't help up chuckle through his chewing. He sighed and relaxed his shoulders. He reached down to kiss her. His mind had been racing, trying to come up with answers all day and finally felt his headache going away. He pulled behind her to deepen it and gave her another short one as he faced towards the street. They were side by side, with arms linked around their waist. Lila watched him finish all of them and patted his back as he swallowed the last one. She walked them towards their sleeping site. It was a very small apartment on the ground floor and as they walked in, they saw their family gathered on the couch, discussing what was next.

They finally had the answers to the questions in the subway. They tried to gather their thoughts but exhaustion hit them and felt their brains malfunctioning. Sleep called their names and lured them in.

Lila explained that this was Sloane's apartment. She decided to sleep in the barracks with the rest of her army and let them use it for the night. Lila and Five easily took Sloane's full-size bed and sighed at the soft mattress. Luther took a twin bed and laid it on the living room's wooden floor and tucked his arm underneath his head. Allison took the couch on one side of the room while Diego took the other. Klaus and Viktor decided to share the queen mattress in the other room. It only took ten minutes for the snoring to start.

Lila laid her head on Five's chest and breathed in to find an unfamiliar smell. The clothing and the odd-smelling soap filled between them. She looked up to find him and kissed him. He kissed her back and put his hand on her cheek. She pulled away to say, "It's happening. I can't believe we are actually doing it."

He furrowed his brow and anxiety sloshed inside him again. "Yeah, me neither. We need to get this right. We are so close now." He felt his chest tighten and gripped Lila tighter.

"Love, you know, if this fails, it's okay, right?" Lila furrowed her eyes back at him, "I'll understand. We'll understand. You don't have to save everyone all the time."

"I just need to save you." Five whispered through the dark.

"No. If you need to, you save both of us. You hear me?" She propped her body up by her elbows and stared down at him. "You leave me behind again, and I'll..." She trailed off her threat, unsure how to finish her sentence.

Five chuckled, pulled her down and whispered in her hair, "Okay, okay. Don't worry." He kissed her temple and her forehead as she laid it back down to his chest. As Lila began to breathe slower and deeper, Five stared at the ceiling. There was such a small chance of doing this right. Doing it once. A million to one chance to go home to Lila. Although his mind raced at the slim chances, he couldn't fight the exhaustion any longer.

Five stared at the statue of Ben. It was at his old family manor with everything around him decayed. The moon lit the statue strangely, almost making Ben unrecognizable. The wind eerily blew his hair to his eyes, and he fought it to keep it behind his ear. The statue grew and grew to an incredible size. Confusion wrapped his mind as he fell back and staggered as it loomed over him by several feet. He panicked and quickly rose to his feet to sprint away.

He ran past the darkness into a white room that slowly filled to show a cozy and warm living room. There was a fireplace that kept the room warm and a small couch in front of it. On the coffee table sat two steaming cups of tea. Lila wore a flowery dress and sat down to place the plate of cookies. He instinctively walked towards her and sat on the couch next to her. He didn't fully comprehend what was going on but went along with it. He grabbed the hot teacup and took a sip with her. Five broke into smile at the pure peace of her and of this room. He felt the ease seeping into him as the hot tea traveled down his throat. He couldn't help but watch her with love.

"You could have had this, you know. We could have had children, here." She said, smiling and warmly, as children scurried upstairs giggling. Five tried to comprehend the clashing words and tone, as his eyes followed them upstairs. "We could have been safe. Why couldn't you do it?"

Five started to panic at the dead look in her eyes. His breathing picked up and he started shaking the teacup in his hand. Although it started spilling over, it didn't burn. He dropped it and stood up, backing away from her. He opened the front door and stepped out. He closed his eyes, trying to wake up. He knew this was a dream. Damn it, it was a dream. Wake up. Wake up! He split his eyes open with his intentions strong.

He opened it to the beach. The sounds of seagulls and waves crashing around his feet surprised him. He swirled his head around to find something, anything useful. He felt a hand slide into his. Lila stood next to him, but with gray hair. She had wrinkles around her eyes and wore a soft flannel dress. She looked out into the ocean with him and sighed. He held her hand and stared at her aged face against the Sun. And like the Sun, she beamed at him.

"We could have grown old together."

He struggled to catch his breath and felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple. His new shirt felt wet around the collar, and he struggled to adjust his eyes. He couldn't tell if this was a dream and panicked when the room didn't feel familiar. Her last words ringed in his ear. Reality settled in with Lila's calming presence beside him. He took a deep breath, letting her warmth anchor him back to reality. Her hand was gently resting on his back, steadying his breaths as he relaxed into the familiar comfort of her touch.

"Hey, hey." She brought her other hand to his slicked face. It was pale and his lips were so dry she wanted to kiss it for moisture. "You're okay. Breathe, love. It's okay. You're safe."

"Sorry for scaring you," he murmured, his voice still shaky.

"It's okay," Lila replied softly, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. "You were dreaming, and it's normal to feel overwhelmed with everything going on."

Five nodded, his mind slowly clearing from the remnants of his nightmare. The gentle rise and fall of Lila's chest was soothing. He turned to her, meeting her eyes with a mix of gratitude and concern.

"I just keep thinking about what ifs," he confessed, his voice barely above a whisper. "What if we don't get this right? What if—"

"Hey," Lila interrupted, placing a hand to his cheek and placed her thumb on his lips. "We're doing everything we can. We've faced worse odds before. We've got this."

Looking at her, slowed his heart down. This was real. This was the Lila he knew. This Lila brought him back down to Earth when he tried to float away. Lila searched his eyes to find it traumatized. Lost and looking for something to hang on to. Like he was trying to find her only to look past her. Five reached out and clasped her hand, squeezing it lightly. "Thank you," he said, his voice dripping with his love for her. "For being here. For believing in us."

Lila smiled, her eyes warm and reassuring. "Always. No matter what happens, we face it together."

They laid back down, and Five pulled Lila close, letting his Sun breathe ease into him. As sleep began to reclaim him, Five's thoughts were less burdened. He focused on Lila's presence, a reminder of the strength they shared. The life under his hands and weight she carried with him. Every breathe she took, it lifted the weight off his shoulders.

Lila only fell asleep once she heard Five's breathing slow into deep sleep.

Sloane woke up as the Sun started to rise. The sky was brightening by the second as Sloane walked to her apartment and heard light snoring before she opened the door. There was three people in her living room, sleeping peacefully and couldn't help but stare at Luther.

"You know, staring counts as instigating a fight." Luther whispered past his grogginess. He hadn't opened his eyes but heard her softly opening the door and felt her stare. When he did manage to open one, he saw Sloane blush and walk towards the other room to open it. Viktor and Klaus were hugging each other in their sleep. She walked to the other end of the hall to open her bedroom. Lila and Five were on their sides as Five wrapped his hands around her waist. She walked past them and scavenged through her closet for a new pair clothes. She changed in the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and checked her wound in the mirror. It held up much better than the day before and she carefully wrapped the bandage around again.

When she exited the bathroom, the entire family were up and stretched as they yawned.

"I really do prefer sleeping horizontally." Allison said, remembering her previous sleep on the desk.

As they got ready, Sloane waited for them, sitting on her dining room table, grinding a sharpener against the multiple blades displayed. When Diego went to reach for one, she slapped his hand away and glared at him. He raised his hands in defense and walked to the bathroom.

Sloane remembered the six toothbrushes in her pocket she grabbed and pulled it out to set it on the sink next to Diego. She walked away silently and returned to the sharpening. They felt better after a good night sleep and a fresh face, and slowly gathered back in the living room. Sloane interrupted when Klaus sat down, the last to use the bathroom.

"We are expecting guests today. We got news that the other compound successfully smuggled out another dozen." Sloane stopped their clattering with this news. "I saw you guys have powers. I expect you to help."

They stared at her, in disbelief. They already had an apocalypse to fight, but another one?

"Look, it will just be easier with y'all. Just come, do some defense, only attack if necessary. It won't take long." Sloane rolled her eyes at the uneasy faces from the group.