Chapter Text
His power had limits.
Five had learned this long ago, his power had limits. There are only so many times he could jump through time and space within a certain period before he exhausted himself and his stamina. As he grew older, he had tried to push the boundaries of this gifts, to stretch them just a bit farther. But there was always a limit, a hard line that would prevent him from spanning through the cosmos that he had always so longed to do.
Now, stuck in his thirteen year old body, holding the hands of his siblings as the world comes to an end, Five wonders why it had to come to this-wonders why limits had to exist at all. Teleporting through time on his own accord had been disastrous, but teleporting a group of people along with him is a true gamble of the highest order.
But this gamble is the only option they've all got left.
He yells at them to hold on, that it’s going to get messy. He can already feel his body straining under the force of those ever pressing limits as he pushes himself to the brink. The glowing blue under his eyelids flashes violently, crackling with energy as a portal is opened. It couldn’t all be for nothing. All of those years in isolation, all of those lonely nights and haggard days. All of those evenings where he held a sniper rifle in his hands and wondered if it’d be better to turn the gun on himself instead. All of the times he fell and couldn’t get up for hours, clutching at his bloodied knees as a scared child, lost to a dead world.
The only thing that had kept him going was the small thread of hope that he could see his siblings once more.
To go home to Ben and Vanya. To talk late at night about literature, equations, and bad media with Ben. To be there during the times when his brother needed him, giving his sibling something to focus on by shoving quantum equations at him or complaining about the uselessness of his siblings during training sessions. To listen to Vanya shyly pluck out melodies on her violin late at night, to give her a rare smile and ask for another song. To go out and eat donuts with his siblings when they were all feeling mischievous and too awake to settle down for the night.
It wasn’t a great life, but it was his. It was the only thing he knew once upon a time, and the only thing he wanted back. While that might not be possible anymore, what he could do, was fix the future from turning into the apocalyptic nightmare that he had endured. He could bring them all back, and they could try and repair the broken shambles of what they call a family. They could all try and be happy.
His hands tighten around the people he’s connected with, squeezing his eyes shut as he throws everything he has into successfully warping them into the past. A strangled cry leaves his mouth unbidden, feeling his limbs ache with tension and his bones grind with the strain of his power. Energy flashes around them, illuminating the theatre eerily as the glass room shows pieces of the destroyed moon free falling towards the planet.
Five gives one last shout of effort, head falling back as the power flows through him before everything turns black. He has the strangest feeling of falling, weightless, as he continues to plummet. The only bit of consciousness he clings to wonders if he succeeded.
The blackness eventually warps into the smell of the outdoors and the earth beneath him. His chest flares in pain as he hits the ground, falling face down onto his forearms. Dry dirt rests under his fingernails, a swirl of crisp autumn wind. His body aches.
He feels like he’s been here before.
“Does anyone else see…little Number Five, or is that just me?” comes the bewildered voice of Klaus that echoes in his ears.
Five’s eyes shoot open in alarm. He has been here before.
Pushing past his weariness, Five forces himself into pushing off the ground and wobbling up onto his feet. He blankly glances at his hands, seeing that he’s wearing a suit meant for an adult which hangs off of him. It’s a familiar fabric, one he wore on his last day as a killer and an adult before he had traveled back in time to stop the apocalypse. His breathing increases in speed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t where or when he was supposed to be.
Five looks up and sees all five of his siblings huddled together standing over him, looking like he had just fallen out of the sky. In a way he supposes, he did. The catch was they were all still adults, wearing the same outfits they had one when he had previously teleported back. There was no mention of the plan, of what had happened just moments before. They were all staring at him the exact same way they had when he had first appeared to them eight days prior.
In wondered disbelief.
“Shit.” He breathes in dismay.
“Five?” Vanya calls out hesitantly to him.
“Shit.” He repeats, staring at them all blankly. “This can’t be happening.” He whispers.
What the hell happened?
He wastes no time, plowing past all of them and making his way inside. Several exclamations of alarm and confusion follow him, the loud footsteps of his siblings dogging behind him as he makes his way into the kitchen. As routine, he angrily sets down the cutting board on the table, along with a knife, moving to snatch the bread off of the counter.
“What’s the date? The exact date.” He spews out angrily as the plucks two pieces of bread from the confines of plastic.
“The 24th. Vanya replies to him, somewhat breathlessly as if she’s seeing a ghost.
“Of what?”
“March.”
He picks up the knife and angrily stabs it into the cutting board, creating a loud slam that echoes throughout the room. His siblings are silent. Everyone is silent. The room feels too silent. Five breathes deeply, grip white-knuckled on the knife before he releases it. He’s not hungry. He doesn’t want to eat. He unconsciously came over because this is what he had done the first time around when he came falling through that portal, following an old routine of childhood that had no real meaning.
His mind churns a mile a minute, trying to figure out what happened. Had he simply travelled back in time once more eight days before the apocalypse? How did that make sense? What happened to his siblings? Why hadn’t they been affected? Where had they gone if he had failed? This didn’t make any sense.
“This doesn’t make any sense.” He repeats out loud.
“Are we going to talk about what happened? You were gone for seventeen years, Five.” Luther says chidingly, as if Five had a choice in the matter, as if he had any idea what Five had gone through.
“I was gone a lot longer than that.” He mutters bitterly, the déjà vu clinging like a veil over his memories.
He looks to his siblings all huddled around the kitchen table, staring at him expectantly for answers. Resignation creeps into his stomach and stays there like a pit of poison, churning slowly like a sickness in his veins. He failed. What if this wasn’t even real? What if it was a product of his imagination all along?
He inhales, trying to think of something, anything that would give him a way to prove that the past eight days had indeed happened.
“Klaus?” he murmurs softly, drawing a raise of an eyebrow from the disastrous sibling.
“Yes, sweet child o’mine?” Klaus grins back, swinging the tassel of the skirt he was wearing as he sits cross-legged on the table.
“Does Ben happen to remember anything about what happened just now?” Five asks gravely, bracing his palms on the table.
Klaus stiffens in surprise and the other siblings all swallow down reactions of shock and awkward tension.
It’s Vanya who breaks the silence. “Five, I…Ben is…” she trails off with uncertainty, hesitant to speak about someone in the family who has departed.
“I know what happened. That’s not the question.” He retorts to her, glancing back to Klaus. “I need to know if he remembers what happened just moments ago. Does he remember the moon falling? The attempt to teleport?” Five presses adamantly.
Klaus awkwardly side eyes the open air, clearly looking at Ben’s ghost for answers that he himself doesn’t understand.
“Five, I don’t know what happened, but it’s clear that you’ve been through quite a journey. Maybe it’s best for now, if you get some rest.” Luther says as he stands, his figure looming over everyone with ease.
It feels condescending.
Five feels rage bubble to the surface and spill over immediately. He didn’t have time to explain everything that happened to Luther of all people. The man had a morality streak that ran so high that Five could touch the sky with it.
“Number One, I understand that you’ve been on the moon for years now, but I’ll let you know right now, that I am not a fucking child. I have the subconscious of a 58-year-old that has been unfortunately stuck with this thirteen-year-old body.” He grins and its all sharp with teeth, nothing pleasant about it.
“And while we’re at it, because last time you chided me about why I didn’t tell you anything sooner, how about I just tell you now!” Five rants, feeling all of the frustration lash out in waves.
Klaus is looking at him with genuine uncertainty, like he's unable to look away from a car crash in slow motion. The rest however, are all looking at him with various shades of caution and judgement. Vanya, the worst of all, her dark gaze concerned and pitying. He didn’t need anyone’s pity, especially not hers. Vanya who, he thought out of everyone, would have believed him on first explanation.
The worst part of this is that Five doesn’t even know if they’re wrong or not. Maybe he really is insane.
“When I jumped forward in time, I jumped into an apocalypse. There was nothing there, nothing. You, all of you, were dead. I spent my life struggling off of anything I could find just trying to survive and make my way back to you. The old man was right about one thing, time travel is a crapshoot. I couldn’t get back initially. But the world ends in eight days, and I am here to stop it. We can fix this together, but it’s not going to be easy.” His words tumble out in a messy cramped explanation and Five breathes in a deep inhale, looking at every one of his siblings.
The silence is so thick it can be cut with a knife.
“Five.” Vanya starts tentatively, eyeing her other siblings before fixing her gaze back on him tenderly. “You’ve…you’ve been through a lot, maybe- “
Rejection.
Five interrupts her by slamming his fist on the table, everyone jumping at the sudden sound. God, why would he ever bother telling anyone anything. No one had believed him until it had been too late even before. He leaves them in the kitchen to their speechlessness, teleporting into his old room and slamming the door shut with a click of a lock. He angrily shoves open the closet, picking the first blazer he can find and changes into his old better-fitting uniform. Five inhales and exhales deeply, pulling on his black socks as he sits on his old bed, thinking of everything that happened in such a short span of time.
The jump hadn’t succeeded and somehow, he was right back where he started.
Heaving out a breath, he drops his head, hands coming up to cover his face as he attempts to keep calm. He's so tired. So tired of working, tired of scraping his knees for solutions, tired of constantly pushing himself past his limits for nothing. Now it's all just back where he had started. All of that effort for nothing.
Back again. Back again.
His inhale comes in a bit choppy this time and he has to take a moment to ground himself. Dropping his hands, Five stares out the window, watching as grey clouds begin to roll in. It would rain soon. His brothers would fight and break Ben’s statue while the rest of them stood around in complacency. He clutches the comforter between his fingers tightly as he sucks in another deep inhale, trying to find his bearings. He already knew what they would do, because this has all happened before. His brow furrows in thought, contemplating the routes he could take now that he knows everything he didn’t the last time he was in this position.
Five tugs on his black dress shoes, tying the laces tightly before he gets up.
So, he had missed the mark the first time, but he wasn’t going to stop trying. This time around, he has a lot more answers, a lot more information he can work with right at the start. He could save Vanya from herself and a toxic relationship. He could help his siblings reconnect. He could help make them all a family. This gift of foresight could be enough to stop an entire apocalypse. Five exhales steadily, straightening his tie and smoothing down his sweater vest underneath his crisp blazer. Ready.
Time for take two.