Year 3, Month 1, Day 7.

O675-14, 88:88AM

Five used to be an enemy. There was a point in Lila's life, where she imagined fileting him like a gutted fish. She though about which blade she was going to use, where she'd cut, where she'd avoid. Then she met him. She met his absolutely bonkers family and for a brief period of time, wanted to kill him to spare him from The Handler, her mother. She thought about killing him efficiently and as painlessly as possible.

She then met Diego and got Grace, steadily growing in her stomach. Five was now an uncle and a friend, and she forgotten she used imagine killing him. When he touched her belly as it grew, he would say, "It's kind of gross you're creating life, right now," just because he knew she'd laugh.

Now, they were stranded, outside of time, and all she thought about was using the same weapons to cut his hair better, shave smoother, and skin their food better. She'd grown so much hair in the last three years and didn't even remember her last hug from her kid. Or just a hug. She thought maybe it was Diego before they left the house as he kissed her goodbye, but she'd remembered that he was in a hurry and just left, letting the door slam and wake the twins.

"Can you cut my hair, Five?" Lila said and watched him put the book down and grab a leaf she'd found to place it in between the pages. "Where's the razor?"

Lila reached in her bag and handed it to him.

"Just cut like an inch." She shuffled her long hair back and swept it to the side to point where she'd wanted. She shivered a little when his cold fingers touched her. It was dead in the winter and their stop was constantly blowing cold wind down and bits of snow started to settle on the top steps. He gathered it all, trying not to touch her neck but a graze made her hairs rise and give her goosebumps.

"Are you cold? Here." He handed her a blanket and wrapped it around her. He pulled out her hair and started lining it up to cut it. It was good that she could hide from his touch and not lean on it when she wasn't thinking. She always wanted an excuse to touch Five now. Every crumb, every piece of hair, a lint on the shirt, she reached for it without thinking. It was becoming normal now. He started to pull away less when she did it. At first, he looked offended, like he didn't want to be treated as a kid, then it turned into him not wanting to be touched by her. Like he was afraid of the warmth nearing him.

Lila heard the blade cutting the hair, felt it fall away on her feet. She grabbed a broken mirror nearby to see it. She saw her hair fractured into million pieces but still saw the overall shape of it.

"Hm… let's cut it shorter." She didn't want him to stop touching her. She loved how he carefully smoothed through her hair with his fingers. She loved how he held the blade and the pull on her hair when he lined it up. Through the small reflection of the mirror, she saw him focused and gentle. How his face looked when he finalized it and smoothed it out for her. She took every opportunity to watch him.

She pushed to continue cutting until they reached her ears and had to focus when he got close to her neck to cut the back shorter. She had to close her eyes to focus on not leaning back to his hand and ignore the warm breathing on her shoulder. She had to pull the blanket down so he could get close, and she regretted pushing for a shorter cut. She tried to remember Diego and her old house. But all she wanted was to keep creating excuses so she could touch him.

August 7th, 5:55PM

4256'14.2"N 7551'35.9"W

He felt the rough rocks stab him in the back when he snapped his eyes open. He jerked up and looked around, twisting his body with no pain. He remembered and touched his ribs and the parallel back to find no pain, no hole, or bandages. He looked up at the leaves confetti the light then followed it down to its wide trunk. Moss spread on the branches facing north, and swaying slowly in the breeze, creaking and whispering.

"It's a Willow Tree. One of my favorites and best creations. Survival, life, loss, it carried many meanings to me." Five stood up and saw a little girl with low pigtails. She had stopped while riding her bike and had to stand on her tiptoes to balance it.

"Okay." Five didn't care. He put his hands on his knees and met her eyes, "Do you know where we are?"

"Where do you think?" She was dumbfounded and like it was too obvious. He snapped up at her face. Like he was stupid.

"If I knew that I wouldn't ask, would I." He huffed and shoved his hands in his pant pockets. He smirked at her, annoyed and impatient. She stayed silent so he turned and started walking away. He whistled a random tune and saw the calm water and the ducks dipping their heads under.

"That's the wrong way, you know." She said, catching up to him with her bike and she slowed to match his speed.

"How do you know what I'm looking for?" He continued, passing the ducks and looking at the rows and rows of trees.

"Because. Lila isn't there."

Five had to stop in his tracks. He felt the gravel drag underneath his shoe and create a small puff of dust. "What did you just say?"

"Lila is that way." She pointed straight behind her. "Idiot."

He saw where she pointed, then turned to see the other side. "But that looks so… peaceful." Far away there was a small hut, with a small garden on its side and sheep roamed the field. "What if Lila's there?"

"Do what you want. But Lila? She's that way." She started biking away towards the hut.

"Why should I trust you?" Five shouted as she inched away.

"Because! Why would I lie?" She smiled and turned to him just for a second.

He felt the blade on his neck. He wanted to pull away and take the weapon, but nothing worked. He tried to open his eyes or move it or wiggle his toes, but it was as if someone unplugged his brain from his body. He was deciding whether to panic, but he heard Lila's voice.

"Five, you really are a handsome bastard, you know that? God, I love your face." He wanted to reach up to her. He smelled the shaving cream, and it tickled his nose. He felt her weight pull the bed down as she slowly inched down his face and wiped it off. He kept trying, a finger, his foot, like trying to rewire his brain. Then, she started singing and forgot what he was trying to do. She was barely saying the words and hummed when she didn't know the lyrics.

"It's very clear, our love is here to stay." She started shaving down the next section. "Not for a year…" she stopped when she focused when passing past his jaw, then continued, "but ever and a day…" She hummed the rest as she wiped the blade again. "They're only made of clay. Our love…" she stopped. Like she couldn't let herself finish the lyric.

He heard her shaking breath and felt her eyes. "Are you going to stay?"

He wanted to touch her hand and open his eyes to see her. He missed her even from inches away and didn't understand why his body wouldn't do the one thing it wanted to do. He missed her singing, the shaving, her lips, and her voice. He wanted her to say his name and hear the love in it. He wanted to hide from the world with her. He wanted to take her to the greenhouse, so they'd never have to think about this ever again.

When he heard the tap turn on, his eyes obeyed, like it was pitying him.

August 6th, 3:22AM.

4111'31.5"N 7348'20.9"W

Klaus tried to sleep, but between the bumping of the van and cold metal against his back, everything ached. He hadn't used his powers since he drank the Marigold and felt the adrenaline still pumping through him. He forgotten what his powers felt like but remembered it didn't feel like this. This was concentrated and like a light had been lit inside of him. Before, every time he summoned his powers, it felt like fighting demons that had been secretly possessing him. He squeezed his fist to remember what it was like. In the barn, he easily summoned 20 people to hold down Jennifer. Through his sobriety in the last three years, he's easily confessed to a group full of addicts, that he loved his sobriety and now felt 'fully at peace.' Although, it did partially, he had used drugs to suppress his powers and the emotional turmoil it brought along. He always felt 2% empty with nothing that would fill it. He figured out it wasn't drugs, either, because he felt the same before. Always 2% short, just shy from enough. The designated disappointment and failure under his father, he did everything to fulfill that title. In his time travel, sobriety, and saving the apocalypse three times, he felt like a new person emerged.

He felt his powers coursing through his veins. He felt every cell pushing the Marigold along his system, pumping his brain, his heart, and his body as they traveled through the night. They were slowly syncing back up as each of their powers developed and adapted with their bodies in this timeline. They were quicker, better, and stronger together than they ever were.

"Can't sleep?" Diego said quietly, careful to not wake the others. He met eyes with him through the back mirror.

"Yeah, adrenaline, I guess." Klaus whispered back.

"You did summon an army." Diego replied.

"Honestly, I feel like my adrenaline are still pumping from the tunnel. I hope Arla is okay." Klaus said looking out the back window. He didn't see anything other than the streetlamp that passed by.

"Arla? Is that the girl with the braid?" Diego kept his eyes on the road, glad to have something to stay awake to.

"Yeah. She's just so young." Klaus worried and picked on his lip.

"We were young too, Klaus." Diego muttered back, "We survived."

"And look at us now, still surviving." Klaus looked at his eyes through the mirrors again, with disappointment. He saw Diego struggle to find the right answer and looked back at him.

"Arla will be okay. Doc is there. Sloane, Grace. She has people, like we did."

August 5th, 7:43PM.

4300'15.5"N 7347'27.4"W

Five suggested they write final letters, just in case, but when it came time to write, he was stumped. He realized he's never written a letter, let alone a love letter in case of his death. He didn't know where to begin or describe how Lila sat in his heart. A final goodbye, to her? Anxiety stacked stones in his hands and swirled his mind, trying to come up with anything real, anything better than an 'I love you'. The paper wasn't big enough and time sped up as he struggled to start. He wished he would have had more time to show her, but in case he didn't, he wrote it down.

He gave himself a minute, a set time to write something, anything down so she'd know she was loved. When he saw her, through the car front window, she scribbled something down and met his eyes. She smiled with her eyes, and it was so full of excitement that they were going home soon. He wanted her to know she was loved until he was gone. Pressure rose in him and the barn called his name. The way home, one part down, and one more to go. But just in case, she would have to hold his dead body, he wrote what he would say to her instead.

He would tell her to breathe and that he's with her. He'd tell her he'd wanted more time. He'd tell her that if he's not given enough of it, she should know he loved her with all of him. How he was incredibly grateful to be in this life, as shitty as it was, with her. Out of all the chances, of all the worlds, he got to love someone that loved him back as equally and as viscerally as he did. That he was a different man, even dying, because he would know, without a fault, Lila loved him.

I mean, what are the chances, someone would love Five? That somebody would choose and stay with him? Five wanted to stay, desperately, and decided to fuck the chances and the numbers. He was making it out of here, whether death wanted to take him. He would kill death million times over, if it meant that she'd never have to read this letter.

Year 5, Month 3, Day 3.

V839-43, 88:88PM

"Five! I found blackberries!" Lila excitedly ran towards him. She shoved one in his mouth, and he choked but chewed it anyways.

"Pretty good." He raised an eyebrow at her, but she had her eyes closed, savoring the sweet blackberries. When she finally did open them, he was already smiling at her, grinning at her face. She noticed a blue smudge on the side of his lips, and she raised her hand to wipe it off. It had been years since he had given up trying to pull away. Though every touch left him bewildered and ached for days, he let her remove the spot.

He felt it like a shock, and it hurt his jaw as it pushed past his body. He gripped the basket tight and tried hard loosening it. He focused on not blinking to much or look startled it but decided to look away instead. He remembered how hard he fought her in that late-night diner, wearing his stupid disguise.

He noticed how she held the blackberries in her shirt with the edges pulled up and closed at the chest. She'd gotten thinner in the last few months and wanted to feed her a hearty warm meal, but there was nothing here. They gathered as many fruits as possible and plants they knew, flipping through a faunas and floras book they found but half of the faunas didn't make it. Soon, the Sun was setting and Five looked out at the far away and crumbling city. It was a desert, with half of its tallest buildings half buried in fine sand. He sighed at the silence, absent of the rumbling and loud train, closed his eyes at the Sun. He took as much vitamin D as he could as he could go weeks without seeing one again. He opened them again hearing Lila step next to him, just at the edge of a steep cliff, holding a tree trunk as an anchor. She already had her eyes closed and let her hair dry in the wind. They had just found a clean stream and took a very cold and fast bath. It was fall here, and leaves flew past her face, the golden hue around them was electric and colorful it hurt his eyes. He didn't care. He got to look at her however he wanted.

Just for a little bit, he let his tense face relax as he watched her. Her roughly cut bangs split open, and her long hair flew in different directions as the wind shifted. He raised his arm to swipe away at a strand caught in her face but couldn't do it. He was always afraid to touch her. Afraid to trigger a catalyst he couldn't control. He had been so good. He took care of her and loved her the way she wanted him to. She had trusted him and loved him in her own way; he couldn't be that selfish to her. He didn't let himself touch her, because why would he be allowed to?

His heart ached harder as he put his hand down. He felt his breath stagger and swallowed his emotion whole, putting back on the mask. Her shirt was stained from the blackberries, and it created flowers on her light blue shirt. Her hand reached out to feel the wind through her fingers and Five had to do everything in his power to not reach for her. He clenched his fist tight and watched her face again. It was still closed as she hummed in joy.

He couldn't take it anymore. He shut his eyes and faced the large and setting Sun that swallowed the city whole. At least the slowly exploding Sun would be a good excuse for his tear.

"Five." Lila said, suddenly and quietly. He tried to show no emotion, but he was pretty sure it failed. He turned to look, having to step a little off the edge. He matched her gaze, but before he could even see anything, she kissed him. He didn't have time to react when she pulled back and staggered a few steps. Realization, devastation, confusion, and fear all flashed across her face. His heart sank. As if it was ripped out under him and thrown against the burning Sun, he realized, she regrets it. She hates it.

He caught to follow behind her but left five feet of space. He stopped when she stopped and continued when she did. They entered the subway platform, and she casually asked, as if nothing had happened, like nothing changed, "What should we have for dinner?"

August 7th, 4:20PM

4256'14.2"N 7551'35.9"W

"Klaus. Klaus!" Ben whispered out the window, towards the balcony only a few feet away. Klaus jerked at his voice, almost falling out of the lounge chair.

"Ben? What?" Klaus whispered back.

"Guess what I found!" Ben looked around and pulled out a neatly packed joint.

"Where did you get that?" Klaus whispered, excited and concerned.

"I found it in my bag! I totally forgot I had it!" Ben shook it. "You wanna?"

Klaus waved him over, "Hurry up. Before they smell it."

They were halfway through when they realized they left the door open and quickly shut it. They busted out in a fit of giggles and Ben hugged the lounge chair. "Here. It's your turn."

Klaus took it and dragged it until it burned the paper white with ash. "Hey, you think the universe is rooting for us?" Ben giggled back.

"Maybe. I don't really think about it like that. Somebody controlling us. Somebody deciding something." Ben shrugged, "But would I like it to? Of course! No decision making. Just someone declaring, 'This is it! Deal with it!'" Klaus laughed at his raised arm and God-like voice.

"I met God once, you know. I think. She was a little girl." Klaus handed the joint back to Ben.

"What are you talking about, man? I think you're too high." Ben shook his head and smoke trailed behind him.

"No. No. I swear to God. May she strike me now. I saw her. I talked to her. She was mean and riding a bike." Ben laughed harder, and nearby crows cackled back. Klaus soon joined, understanding how crazy it all sounded. When they died down and sighed together, they laughed again.

They finished it and threw the roach far away. They laid in their chairs and let the Sun soak into their skins. They felt the warmth, and everything seemed to melt away. When it was starting to set, it got chillier, and wind grew stronger. They scurried back inside and shut the balcony doors.

Before they entered the living room to join their family, Ben grabbed his shoulder to say, "I'm rooting for us," before he let go and entered the living room to kiss Jennifer on the cheek.

August 7th, 5:25AM

4256'14.2"N 7551'35.9"W

When she woke up, it was still dark, and she felt blind. She kept trying to open her eyes, but the darkness stayed. She roamed her hands around and still felt Five's hand, cold and unreciprocating. She followed it up to his arm to his chest and laid her hand on it to feel him breathing. She felt the soft rise and fall with the bandage still wrapped around. She felt his other arm and felt the tape holding the port and sighed. Even as minutes passed, she could not even see Five's shadow or outline. She turned to the lamp on her side of the bed to click it on, but no light followed. She was puzzled and clicked through it several times with nothing in return. She pushed herself out of bed and carefully shimmied through the room until she felt the door hinge, then the knob, and had to skim her hands up and down the wall to finally feel the switch. She flicked it on and still nothing returned.

She was feeling claustrophobic now and tried to keep her breathing still. The room was cold and absent, like it existed outside of time and space. Nothing here existed nor deceased. She stumbled back into the bed to reach for Five again. She felt his hand and squeezed it, but this time she felt something back. A twitch, then a squeeze, as his hand fell through her fingers and clasped it.

"Five?" Lila gasped. She tried to hear him breathing or moving, but it was so still and silent it frightened her.

"Five." Lila tried again and tried to pull her hands out of his grasp. "Ow. Five, that hurts."

"Five. Stop. It hurts." She tried again and she felt her voice muffled and far away. She kept trying to blink to see something, but darkness swallowed the room whole and her with it. She tried to pull away using her body, clawing at his arm, pushing away from him with her legs as she grunted in pain.

"Let go, Five. Let go!" He strained harder and felt the deadly grip rip into her skin. She felt a trickle of blood fall on the silk. "Ah! Stop, please! Five!"

She wanted to reach for a weapon, or considered using her body to subdue him, but the pain was overwhelming. It consumed her as blood flowed out her body and felt it splatter on her leg. She tried to scream for help but when she tried, nothing came out. Like she was muted or shut off, only her mouth moved, straining her neck to silence and she tried screaming louder and louder.

She heard a crack on her hand and felt her metacarpals in her palm move freely as he continued wringing it. Pain shot through her, "What do you want? Please, tell me what you want!" She felt a hard torso as she punched over his chest and felt her knuckles crush a jaw, but it stood still like a practice dummy. Everything so far took all her concentration, every blink, every shout, every word was already a struggle and took the little energy she had. She wanted to cry but saw none fell out her sight. She stopped fighting. She let her arms drop and let her head drop onto his hard shoulder. It felt like a stranger.

"What are you afraid of?"

She was already crying when she woke up. She had to blink several times to check if it was real, but even through the darkness, she saw the decorated furniture, the lavender satin sheets, and Five still and breathing beside her. He was bandaged and three bags attached to his arm. The moon lit the room up and she could see around her.

Her entire body was shaking and slicked with sweat. She raised her hand to see it back to normal and no blood on the sheets. She flipped it over a few times and squeezed her hand into a fist to check if everything was in its place. Her knees tried to give out but she pushed through to the bathroom and splashed water on her face and gulped it straight from the spout. She stared at herself in the mirror and saw how frightened she looked.

She crawled back into bed, turning on the lamp—sick of the darkness. She shivered as the sweat quickly evaporated leaving her cold. She watched Five breathe evenly and refused to sleep, even if it fought her heavily. It only took two hours for the pitch-black sky to light up as the Sun revolved around again. She let it take her when she saw it peek out into the sky.