Umbrella Academy fic: The Start of the Story (10/16)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
-o-
Talking to Klaus takes much longer than expected, and Five has to buy him dinner, desserts and coffee. In truth, the coffee is for Five, but waiters still think it’s weird for a 13 year old to drink coffee, so hanging out with Klaus has to have some advantage, however small.
By the time they get back to the Academy, Klaus is ready for bed, and Five retires to his bedroom with a sigh. He sits down on his bed and tries to mentally prepare himself for the next few days. He goes over the plan, looking over his notes before closing his eyes and reciting them to himself again.
When he opens his eyes, Ben’s there.
Five doesn’t like the way Ben can slip in and out unnoticed -- it’s an unfair tactical advantage. But seeing as Ben’s dead, it seems petty to hold that against him.
Instead, he picks up one of two remaining packets that he’s amassed, tossing this one on the table next to the chair where Ben is seated.
“If Klaus is asleep, I don’t know if you’ll be able to open it,” Five says without prompting. “But it’s all there. The whole plan. I’ve highlighted special sections that apply just to you.”
Ben glances at it, and he picks it up.
“You’ve been practicing,” Five observes, impressed.
“Klaus has,” Ben reports, scanning the first page quickly. “I think this whole thing has motivated him.”
“Motivated to eat waffles,” Five quips, and he’s glad that Ben can’t insist that they eat food to make the transfer of information go faster or more pleasant or whatever. His stomach feels like it’s about to burst. “I spent the whole day with him, and I’m still not sure he gets it.”
“The details, hard to say,” Ben agrees. He’s already on page three. “But the big picture? He hasn’t stopped training. He knows what’s at risk here. He’s taking it seriously, which is why he can’t show you he’s taking it seriously.”
That’s backward logic, which is the only kind of logic that has ever applied to Klaus. Five accepts it, and turns his attention back to the task at hand. “Well, it’s your turn now,” he says. “We can go over things or you can just ask questions. It’s up to you.”
Of all his siblings, Ben had always been the only one with an intellect to at all rival Five’s. Ben had been a voracious reader in life, but he had always been focused on the emotional response and not the utilitarian value. Still, Five had felt starved for someone who understood him, so the fact that Ben actually enjoyed reading had always been something to draw them together.
Ben puts the packet of papers down. “I think it’s pretty self explanatory,” he says. “It’s the same plan we keep stopping you from.”
“Well, sure,” Five says, matter of fact. “But with a few key changes.”
Ben raises his eyebrows. “Not for you.”
This point doesn’t seem necessary to Five. He makes a face. “Well, that’s why I made up the plans for each of you,” he explains. “This whole thing, it rides on the rest of you.”
Ben is nonplussed, as only a ghost can be. “You’re putting an awful lot of faith in the family.”
He says it like that, says it because he knows what it’s like to be let down. He’s the one who has paid the ultimate price. He’s the one who went on a mission and didn’t come back. For Ben, trust is a palpable thing, known acutely in its absence.
They’re opposites, however. Ben was the first to die, and Five outlived them all. It’s a perspective that has defined them both. Five cocks his head, ever quizzical. “Do I have a choice?”
Ben’s reply is unflinching, unyielding and unhesitating. “Yes.”
This answer is not the one Five wants, nor is it one he expects. It’s hardly fair for Ben to play all sides of the fence. This is the brother who forced him to stage his own intervention. Now, Ben’s sitting here (floating here? Physics!), telling him to watch his back. “It’s irrelevant,” Five says curtly. “So do you have any questions or not?”
“No, I don’t,” Ben says, making no effort to consult Five’s carefully constructed notes again. “I’ve listened to you as you’ve explained this to everyone else. I watched you make it the first time. I know what’s supposed to happen.”
This is a tad on the passive-aggressive side, which is about as cutting as Ben tends to get. Five has the impulse to dismiss it and say that things are good enough, but there’s too much at stakes. It’s coming too fast, too soon. Ambiguity has never set well for him anyway, much to his own personal peril. “You’re not happy about this.”
It’s an observation, one that probably is obvious, but Five says it anyway.
Ben shrugs. “Why should I be?”
“Because,” Five says. “I made a plan that fixes the problem, gets rid of the Commission and protects all of us.”
“Sure,” Ben says. “Assuming everything goes right.”
“I did the calculations,” Five says. “What could possibly go wrong? The numbers--”
“Aren’t the people,” Ben interrupts him. “Your plan is great in numbers and probabilities, but we’re just people. The human factor here is what makes this unpredictable. It makes things dangerous.”
Five can’t help but scoff. “Not having a plan is far more dangerous.”
“So is a blind belief that plans are infallible,” Ben says. “Plans fail all the time, even your plans.”
Five takes that moderately personally. “You turn yourself into a 13 year old one time--”
Ben shakes his head, getting frustrated. “If this goes wrong, the others, they’ll probably be okay.”
“Exactly--”
“But you,” Ben says, still shaking his head. “You won’t be. You haven’t left yourself a single out.”
It’s a fairly accurate assessment, though Five hasn’t put it in such clinical delineations. He sits up a little. “That’s why I’m working hard to make sure you’re all ready. Because once this starts, it’s all up to you.”
“Which is why I want you to be careful,” Ben says emphatically. “You. You have to look out for you, just a little bit.”
This is ironic, and Five can’t help but comment. “Says the dead brother.”
Ben is not amused. “Says the one who actually knows,” he says. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it all again, because I get it. The family comes first. But this is a plan without a second chance. You have something to lose, Five. You have come so far to come back to us, and you have a lot to lose.”
This is sobering, and Five feels a little nauseous, though that could just be the excessive amount of food Klaus made him consume. He swallows. “But if it saves them, then I can’t say it’s not worth it.”
“If you don’t come back, it’ll destroy them,” Ben says. “When you left the first time, that’s what started it, you know? The breakdown. Everything was off, and by the time I died, we’d been falling apart for years. If you don’t come back from this, you won’t be saving any of them. You’ll be condemning them -- and possibly the world.”
Well, that’s not exactly the kind of pep talk Five’s probably craved.
Though, to be fair, it’s probably a perspective he needs. He’s been alone so long; it’s hard to understand the idea of mutuality in a relationship. It’s hard to understand a relationship at all. The world has depended on him on such a cosmic level. The intimacy of the dependence now is somehow more overwhelming.
“You need to know that, Five,” Ben exhorts him. “You need to not forget it.”
Five has no comeback. He has no witty reply. He has a plan.
And now he has a promise.
“I won’t,” he says simply.
It’s all he can offer Ben.
Ultimately, it’s all Ben is looking for.
-o-
He saves Vanya for last.
This is partly to satisfy his own obsessive compulsive ways -- he wants to keep things in numerical order because of course he does -- but it’s also because he knows she’ll be the hardest.
The easiest.
And definitely the hardest.
After all, there is no one he is more comfortable showing emotion to than Vanya.
Which means, there’s no one more inclined to evoke actual emotion from him.
Of all the dangers he’s facing, he’s not sure why this one is suddenly the most daunting. It doesn’t matter, however. Five is a lot of things, but he’s not a coward. He sets out to do the task of briefing Vanya in a totally perfunctory fashion. Which is to say he comes into her room while she’s putting away laundry and puts the stack of notes on her bed, stuffs his hands in his pockets and says, “Any questions?”
She stops, a pair of socks still in her hands. Mom offers to do all this for them, but Vanya insists that she enjoys doing the mundane tasks herself. It’s really all the same to Five. The apocalypse had reinforced the absurdity of being tidy, but he can’t deny that there’s some comfort in the practical delineations of civilization.
None of which matters as Vanya stares at him blankly.
“I made up your notes for the upcoming plan,” he amends awkwardly. “Just, you know. In case you wanted a reference.”
He says it as nonchalantly as he can.
This only seems to intensify her confusion. “In case I had questions about your plan to give yourself up to the organization that has ruthlessly been stalking you?”
He can see what she’s doing. He can see the emotion she is imbuing into the notion. He can see it and deflect it just fine. “There shouldn’t be any surprises, but there are a lot of details, so I thought it might be helpful when I’m gone.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
She blanches, and all Five can think about is peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches with the light left on. Sometimes he is a cold hearted bastard.
“Vanya,” he says, trying to be softer now. He can do this. He can manage advanced mathematical equations that defy the logic of most educated minds. He can surely act like a normal human being. “All the equations work out. The plan is solid. There is no reason to think that this won’t work.”
There are a thousand reasons to think that it won’t work, of course. There’s free will, first and foremost, and the Handler’s right about that much: don’t even get him started.
Vanya is still holding her socks like she’s not sure what to do.
“We can go over it, point by point,” Five says and he hastily picks up the packet. “Or we could approach it in broad strokes, whatever you want.”
“I don’t want to go over the plan,” she says.
The suddenness of her answer takes him by surprise. It’s several moments before he realizes that the answer offends him. “I put a lot of work into this.”
“But you’re leaving,” she says, half gesturing with the sock. “Why would I want to go over that?”
He frowns. “Because it’s part of the plan, Vanya. I thought I had made that clear. I thought you understood. I’m doing this for all of us, but I can’t do it unless you support me.”
“I get that, I do,” Vanya says.
“Do you?” Five says. He puts down the papers again. “Because you’re not acting like you give a shit and this is the one time I really, really need you to give a shit, because a lot of this depends on you from here on out.”
She sighs. “Five--”
“Unless you don’t care,” Five pushes on, somewhat reckless now. It had never been the wine that made him loose-lipped. Always the rawness of the emotions he couldn’t keep at bay when drunk. “Because I mean, there’s always that option, and I can’t stop you once this starts, so if that’s what you want--”
“Five, come on,” she protests.
“No, I mean, it’s okay, I get it,” he says. “You’re super powered now. You’re part of the Academy. You’ve gotten what you always wanted, so who the hell cares about the rest, right?”
“Five--”
“I’ll just let you be--”
She cuts him off by moving forward, fast and sure as she crosses the distance between them. She’s still holding the socks in her hand as she leans in, arms around him, and he can feel the socks against his back for several long moments before it occurs to him what’s happening.
She’s hugging him.
She’s actually hugging him.
Moreover, he’s letting her.
He pushes people away. He slaps their hands, blocks their advances.
Everyone but Vanya.
She hugs him now, and all he can think is that it’s really good to be home. That’s the sort of revelation you have when you’re about to lose it again. Five has never had that great of timing, to be honest.
“I’ll study it, memorize it, everything,” she says, voice brushing against his ear. “But I don’t want to spend my last night with you talking work.”
Although he’s acquiesced to the hug, he does not return the affection. “What do you want to do then?” he asks skeptically, voice muffled by her hair. “On the last night?”
She pulls away. “I don’t know,” she admits, finally putting her socks down on top of the papers. “But I think we can come up with something.”
-o-
They start by getting drinks.
This is, of course, easier said than done. Vanya takes him to the grocery store and he picks out his favorite Bordeaux, and she complements it with fresh marshmallows and peanut butter. They eat on the roof, on one of the abandoned decks that their father had deemed unnecessary.
It’s pretty up there, though. A good view of the city. A good view of the stars.
They talk and they tell stories. They even laugh, and she doesn’t act surprised that Five still knows how. That’s impressive; it still surprises him, every time he does it.
The evening draws to a close with a finality that turns Five’s stomach. Everything ends, he knows. Sometimes in ways more final than people care to imagine. It’s a lucky thing to stand on the precipice of change and to herald its coming. Five knows better than most what it’s like to never have a chance to make amends.
Now that he has the chance, he worries that he’s bungling it.
Badly.
The wine is gone and they’re just eating marshmallows like they’re pieces of the sky as it fades to black. The stars shine overhead, and Five hates the sound of his own heart as it thrums in his chest.
“I still think you should ask questions now,” he comments eventually, staring out over the cityscape.
She is wistful in her reply. “If you’re that nervous, you don’t have to do it.”
“What? No,” he says. “I mean, not really. I mean, I know it’s dangerous, and I know it may not work, but I know that it’s the right thing to do.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying.”
He sighs, but there’s really no way to refute that. He shrugs. “The alternative is more frightening, though.”
“You can’t be scared of the unknown, Five.”
He looks at her. “You have to be,” he says. “I wasn’t, and I paid dearly for that.”
He looks back out across the city.
“Being here, reminds me why it matters,” he says.
“Why what matters?”
“All of this,” he says. “Why I came back in the first place. I mean, you can’t stand here, watching so much life, and come to the conclusion that none of it matters. Of course it matters. Good people, bad people, right decisions, wrong decisions: it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. I’ve seen it when it’s all gone, burned and charred to ash, and let me tell you, there’s nothing more beautiful.”
“So it’s worth the risk?” she presses him quietly.
He looks back to her. “Yes. Every time, as many as it takes.”
Vanya sighs a little and looks up. She is studying the moon. “And to think, I destroyed it.”
“We all destroyed it,” Five tells her. “The interconnected realities--”
She shakes her head. “I still remember the feeling, that surge of energy. I had wanted to kill you.”
“Another bad calculation on my part,” Five says. “I should have told you--”
“But free will, right?” Vanya says, and she shakes her head. “That’s not even my point.”
“Then what?”
She stares back up at the moon, huge and round above them. “You look out and see the possibility of life,” she says. “I look out, and I see the possibility of failure. I know why you’re ready to do this, but you have to understand why I’m not sure I am.”
He looks at her, looking at the moon. Vanya, who had been his greatest comfort, was the one responsible. It’s a hell of a thing, knowing you have the power to destroy the world. If there’s a moon still shining, it’s only by Vanya’s good graces.
She’s extraordinary, that’s for sure. And none of it has to do with her powers.
Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out. His fingers are trembling when he places them over the top of hers. She looks at him in surprise.
He swallows. “This is the right thing to do. I wouldn’t ask you to help if I didn’t believe that. For everyone out there. For everyone right here. It’s the right thing to do.”
She smiles, giving his fingers a squeeze. “I know,” she says. “That doesn’t make it easy.”
Before he can reply, she wraps him in a hug again. This time, it’s stronger, more certain.
“I hate this,” she says, sniffling. “It goes against everything inside of me to just let you go.”
“I came back before,” he reminds her.
“I know,” Vanya says, hugging him closer still.
She knows.
Five knows.
And in the silence that lingers, he lifts a single arm and hugs her back.
-o-
This is preamble, honestly. Five’s being sentimental again. This is becoming a problem for him, and he’s not sure how to curb it. He’s not sure sometimes if he wants to, which makes it all the more worrisome. Maybe he’s finally starting to show his age.
Metaphorically, anyway.
He still looks tiny, which is absolutely ridiculous, but so it goes. It’s a part of the story that’s already told, so Five has accepted it not without reservations, but acceptance doesn’t mean you don’t regret things. It just means you’re done fighting them.
At any rate, this is all background noise. Preamble, like he said. He has to stop getting ahead of himself every single time.
This, though.
This is where the action begins.
This is where the plan is enacted.
This is the important part of the story. This is the part that would be remembered by history books, if linear history could ever capture anything about him. This is the part of the story that would be put into movies, extolled in novels, celebrated in epic poems with iambic pentameter. This is the part of the story that saves his family, saves the world. This is the part with that natural climax. This is that part of the story, so Five knows it’s supposed to be told, and he is willing to live it, just like he always said he was.
It’s funny, though. Because for all that it’s the important part of the story, he’s starting to think it’s not the best part.
Not in the slightest.
That’s a subjective distinction, however. It doesn’t matter, in the scheme of things, which part is best.
It just matters that Five does the job he set out to do.
And so he does.
-o-
He leaves at night, when Grace is charging and Pogo is already in bed. He contemplates one most peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich before he goes, but he’s put this off long enough. He doesn’t bring his calculations. He doesn’t bring anything. Where he’s going, he’s not going to need it.
On his way out, he finds his siblings in the living room. They’re seated on the furniture, one by one. Luther looks nervous as he holds his head up. Diego can’t stop fiddling with his knives. Allison looks like she may have been crying. Klaus fidgets with the tie on his leather pants. Ben hovers behind him with a grave expression. Vanya is still crying, for what that’s worth.
Five sighs. “I have to go alone,” he says. “This has to be a legitimate offer. If any of you show up, the Commission will back out and call it a trap. I have to give myself up, no strings attached, in exchange for your unfettered freedom and safety. If we do this, you will all be free, completely free, with no Commission interference for the rest of your lives.”
“We know,” Luther says.
“We’re not going,” Diego adds.
“But we had to be here,” Allison says.
“Like, you’re going going,” Klaus implores.
“You don’t have an escape plan,” Ben reminds him.
Vanya sniffles and gathers herself. “So we had to say goodbye.”
Five is both surprised and uncomfortable. It’s a great thing to find out that your family loves you. But it’s awkward as hell. Delores never made the parting of ways this difficult.
“This is all just a part of the plan,” he says, because they’re approaching this was a finality that speaks nothing of the intricate calculations he’s done for them. “It’s not supposed to be a goodbye.”
“We know, we know,” Luther says.
Diego holds his knife still for a moment. “We’ve memorized your damn plan, man.”
“We’re not going to let you down,” Allison promises.
“We really hope we don’t let you down,” Klaus clarifies almost instantly.
“It could be awhile, though,” Ben says softly.
Vanya is about to lose control of her emotions again. “Too long.”
They talk about time like they understand it. They talk about sacrifice like they have some notion of it. Five’s outlived them all, and the costs to him are more profound than they could possibly grasp. Is there a part of him that wants to be done? Probably. He’s not looking forward to what comes next. Vanya’s declaration -- too long -- is an understatement if it is anything.
But that’s family.
It defies logic and reason. It makes all your calculations break down.
“I know,” he says, because this isn’t the time for lies. All that he has left is the truth. “But I trust you.”
That’s the statement that matters. Five has loved his family all along. But he hasn’t trusted them. He came back to save them, but he hadn’t been ready to tell them the whole story. That had been his mistake but he’s learned.
If he hasn’t learned it yet, what comes next is sure to.
They were all standing now. In the grander scheme of things, that doesn’t mean much, but Five can’t deny that there’s something to be said for solidarity. For remembering what it’s like to be together.
Before he has to go his own way.
“Well,” he says, nodding his thanks to them. “You know what you’re supposed to do.”
He says it like an imperative.
He can see it on their faces: they understand it for the plea it is.
They stand together like that, a moment frozen in time.
Because the best moments can transcend eternity.
-o-
Moments end, however.
Before things get sentimental again, Five bobs his head, waves his hand and walks out into the night. He doesn’t look back.
Why would he look back?
Sometimes the only way to go back.
Is to keep moving forward.
-o-
His first stop is the phone booth. He dials the number without hesitation. He knows this time it will work.
When it connects, he keeps things to the point. “This is Number Five. I’m ready to make a deal. And, yes, I know I’ve said this before. And, no, my family isn’t coming. And, of course, you will come with a full tactical team just to be sure. But you will come. Because we all know that this is the endgame, sooner or later. Let’s make it sooner.”
He disconnects and makes his way to the broken-down warehouse.
It’s time.
God spare him the irony: it’s absolutely time.
-o-
He doesn’t have to wait long.
Maybe the Commission is eager to take him up on his offer. Maybe they don’t want to give his family a chance to intervene. Maybe Five just has no sense of time anymore.
Either way, Five hears her high heels on the concrete before she saunters into the ring of light where Five has poised himself, hands in pockets, expectant and ready.
Surprise isn’t quite the right word for how he feels, but the wry smile on his face is apt enough. The familiar figure is honestly what he’s expected, even if it does defy the logical restraints of the real world. But the Commission exists outside those restraints, and she looks like she’s barely stitched together. The makeup is impeccable, but she looks less and less human every time he sees her. In retrospects, he wonders if she was ever human.
It doesn’t matter now.
Five cocks his head, clicking his tongue. “I didn’t think you’d come yourself,” he says. “I would have thought you would be a little reluctant to go in the field considering how poorly it’s gone for you.”
Her smile is less convincing than ever. “Well, one of these times it’s bound to go the way it’s supposed to,” she says. “Though you do make a compelling case for the power of free will. It’s tiresome, I think.”
She’s fully in the light now, and she’s not alone. Five can see the shadows of the strike team that have filled in around them. They’re armed, and there are a lot of them. Just a step behind her, the store clerk has been resurrected. He’s not smiling, but he’s holding a briefcase, glaring down at Five with obvious disdain.
“And you brought a friend,” Five quips. “But he doesn’t look like he really wants to play.”
The Handler’s poise is contrasted with the barely restrained rage in the figure behind her. It takes something for her not to turn around and visibly reprimand her. The coldness of her voice is warning enough. “He knows his place, and despite his feelings, he’s accepted that,” she says. “The real question is, are you ready to accept yours.”
“I’ve been ready for a while,” he says. “My family took some convincing.”
She raises her eyebrows, but there’s a twinge of concern deep in her eyes. “And how did you do that, pray tell?”
“The calculations were impossible to argue with,” he says. He shrugs. “They just needed time to see that it was a good plan.”
This is what she wants to hear, but she is understandably skeptical. “And what is your plan exactly?”
Five rocks back on his heels. “Same as before,” he says. “I turn myself over to you and submit myself to whatever orders the Commission dictates. I will not resist. I will not flee or fight. As long as my family is safe and unbothered by your agents, I will be fully compliant for as long as I live.”
She regards him carefully. “Surely you can see why this can’t be the welcome reunion I was ready to offer,” she says. “Your actions over the last two meetings have ruined a lot of goodwill. There are a lot of people at the Commission who think the idea of offering you a place is too generous. There are some at the Commission--”
The clerk clears his throat.
The Handler tips her head in vague acknowledgement. “--who feel that you deserve a more dramatic fate.”
Five can’t say that’s good, but he can’t say he’s surprised by that either. He’s not acknowledged this to his family, but he’s considered the possibility that the Commission may simply kill him. If that was the desired outcome, then it seems like it should have happened already, but the Handler does seem to have a thing for flair.
Nonetheless, Five’s not about to give her the satisfaction. He all but rolls his eyes at her. “You know my value or you wouldn’t be here yourself, in the flesh,” he says. “Or, you know, what’s left of it.”
Her laugh is mirthlessly cold. “Your value, yes,” she says. “But you’ve proven that I can’t trust you.”
“That’s why this deal is the right one,” he points out. “You get me, and as long as you keep my family alive and untouched, I’ll do your bidding, whatever it maybe. But I require that my family be left alone. No observation. No surveillance. And you never touch them, no matter what.”
“And if we do that, if we promise that absolute immunity for the rest of their lives, you’ll work with us willingly?” she asks to clarify.
“Absolute immunity,” he agrees. “And you have my absolute loyalty.”
She chuckles. “That’s cute, Five,” she says. “But I don’t want your loyalty anymore. I’m just looking for your submission.”
That’s appropriately ominous, and Five exhales heavily. The pretenses are growing cumbersome to him, and he has the urge to slit the smirking face of the store clerk clean off his neck. Five knows the impulse is reckless and irrational, and he’s not going to do it, but the thought of it still makes him smile. “For absolute immunity, you can do whatever you want with me.”
It’s a pretty bold promise, he knows that. The look of satisfaction on the Handler’s face -- she knows it, too. She thinks she’s getting the better end of the deal.
She holds her hand out to him. “Do we have a deal, then?” she asks.
Five takes her hand and shakes it. “We do.”
She can think whatever the hell she wants.
Five knows she’s wrong.
-o-
The clerk opens the briefcase.
And the whole Five knows is gone.
The plan, he reminds himself as panic threatens to rise in his gut. This is all part of the plan.
-o-
The plan.
What the hell is his plan anyway?
Sure, he’s made an excessively detailed account with all possible caveats for each member of his family, but in all that work, he’s outlined nothing for himself after this point. No, as far as his plan is concerned, all his meaningful actions are finished. Such an oversight had been thoroughly intentional. His part had had limited possibilities; his only role was to endure.
At the time, when he came to that assessment, it had been a practical consideration.
Sitting in what appears to be a cell block back at Commission HQ, it seems less practical now.
Of course, he can’t be entirely sure this is the HQ -- or that HQ even exists in the same time and place as it did before. However, the overall construction looks similar -- gray and dreary -- but it lacks the unsettling charm of the rest of the place. There are no smiling case managers typing away here.
No, here there is nothing but a table and two chairs. A small drain is in one corner and a single bulb, guarded in a protective cage, is mounted at the ceiling. The single door is reinforced at the hinges, and there is a small window lined with bars.
Determining it to be a cell block is natural as it has the charm of a prison.
Somehow, in the jump, he’s already seated. The Commission has really been working on its technology. At his back, the Handler pats him tidily on the shoulder while the clerk busies himself closing up the briefcase again on the other side of the table.
“I have to say,” the Handler chirps. She sounds positively relieved to be back, and her smile is almost beaming. “I wasn’t sure we’d get here.”
“I am good to my word,” he tells her. He hates being seated while she’s standing, but he does his best to act nonchalant. “As long as you are good to yours.”
She shrugs, and if she’s feigning, then her acting is better than Five’s today. “I’ll leave all that to legal,” she says. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, my role in this is over.”
Five tries not to show how much he isn’t expecting her to say that; it is a jarring statement in a way he hasn’t anticipated. “What?”
She notices, and it seems to please her. A lot. “I was ready to be done with you before you stopped the apocalypse, to be honest,” she says and her conversational tone belies what Five knows to be her true intent. “But those in higher management wanted to give me a chance to redeem myself. Imagine how unpleasant that was for me. Recovering from a grenade and then a bullet to the head?”
“I didn’t shoot you,” Five says quickly.
“No, but you did turn Hazel, didn’t you?” she muses. “And let me tell you, they were not happy that the apocalypse was averted. Not happy at all. I told my superiors that you were an exceptional case, and they were sympathetic, they were. But still. Trust must be earned, mustn’t it? So here I am: earning it. All thanks to you and your tiny little schoolboy shorts.”
She says it like she’s chastising a small child for getting a grass stain on his Sunday best.
“Don’t get me wrong, please,” she says. “Lesser agents would have faced must stiffer punishments. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but I’m feeling a bit peaky right now. I am one of the most decorated employees at the Commission. Think about that, now. Me, on track to continue climbing the corporate ladder. Me, who has been the face of the Commission for, well, centuries. Me, on probation like a new recruit.”
She’s painting a vivid picture, composing a tableau where she is the tragic hero. Five’s nerves are on edge just listening.
“I’m not going to lie, it was humiliating being sent back in the field to get you,” she confesses. Across the room, the clerk is sitting down in the chair patiently. “Not once. Twice! Twice I was sent out to bring you in. Failure, I’m sure you can see, was never an option, so I will be very pleased to finally hand in a report of total success. My job is finally done.”
She heralds that with some fanfare, beaming at Five.
Five, still seated on the chair beneath her, has no response to that.
Her smile is sickeningly sweet. “Let that be a last warning for me,” she says, her voice low and sultry. “I’ve given them years of service, unending loyalty and top notch performance. One mistake, and it was all gone. If that’s how the treat their best and brightest and most loyal, then do consider, Five, how they’ll treat someone who has repeatedly and brazenly betrayed them?”
It’s almost couched in kindness; he almost thinks she means it as a word of warning.
That’s probably why he resists it so steadfastly.
“The contracts the Commission offers its agents -- they aren’t fair; they’re not even real,” Five defends himself, puffing his chest out. That used to be impressive when he wasn’t some damn beanpole. “You coerce agents into working for you on false pretenses, and then you give time frames that can never be traced. It’s a rigged system. It was only a matter of time before someone rebelled.”
“Oh, agents rebel from time to time,” she teases him. “Most of them just don’t get very far.”
“Then it’s not my fault that Commission usually hires idiots,” he says, and he shoots a pointed glare at the clerk.
The clerk glares back.
The Handler laughs. His malice makes her utterly delighted. “Keep that fighting spirit,” she says. “That should make what comes next more interesting for everyone involved.”
“But not you? Really?” he asks. He’s not sure why he doesn’t want her to leave. Maybe it’s because she’s been his only contact with the Commission for years. She’s the devil he knows. The devil he’s beaten. “You’ve been after me forever.”
“And then you tried to kill me, multiple times,” she points out. “So that fantasy I had of you being my successor -- well, it’s long since abated.”
“So you coming for me--”
“Was a corporate decision,” she says. “I told you all along, I’m just a cog. You’ll find that other parts of the machine are far more vicious than I am.”
Five shakes his head, not sure what to do with this information. Somehow, he feels like thi sis taking an unexpected turn for the worse. The plan is still intact, of course. It just seems a whole lot less straightforward than it had ten minutes ago. “What does the Commission want with me anyway?”
“Good question,” she says, leaning forward to bop him on the nose. She waggles her eyebrows and bites on her bottom lip eagerly. “Let’s find out.”
-o-
Five finds out, all right. As soon as the Handler leaves, the clerk rounds on him. He doesn’t speak as he puts the briefcase down. A pad of paper and a pencil have appeared on the table. He sits down in the chair across from Five.
“So you’re in charge now?” Five asks. “After what happened last time?”
“Like she said,” the clerk says. “The Commission believes in second chances.”
His voice sounds different, less confident, less free. Five can see that he’s holding himself differently, more rigid. Second chances. Rehabilitation. It sounds like an aggressive approach to break the will through any means necessary. The Commission can take you apart -- and they will -- if only to put you back together according to their choosing. “They’ve broken your spirit, then.”
There’s a flash of anger in his face, but he bites it back quickly. “They’ve taught me restraint.”
“You’re not having fun anymore,” Five observes. “What’s the point of the job if it’s not fun?”
“Being dead isn’t fun either,” the clerk says back sharply. “The Commission has the time to wait for anyone to grow up. Even you.”
“My body is 13,” Five reminds him.
At this, the clerk smiles. “Old enough for you to know better.”
Sitting back, Five crosses his arms over his chest. “Do they really think you can break me? You?”
“No,” the clerk says calmly. “They think that time will do that to you all on its own.”
Five swallows back his reply.
The clerk smiles, pen in hand. “Now,” he says. “Let’s get started.”
“With what?” Five asks.
“Your debriefing, of course,” the clerk says. “Just a few questions is all. All we want is a few answers. That doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?”
-o-
It doesn’t sound bad, maybe.
It is bad, though.
Very, very bad.
At the start, Five doesn’t know this, but he does suspect. He has to suspect; he knows the Commission. He knows what he’s done to the Commission. He knows that there are fates far worse than death, and that all of those fates have probably been reserved for him. That’s speculation, however. The odds are simply good that things are going to be bad. This is the fact his siblings had worried about and the fact that he had readily dismissed. Bad in contrast to the good had balanced out all right in his equations. Practically speaking, however, he’s starting to have his doubts.
See, Five actually has a very high tolerance for bad. Growing up with Reginald Hargreeves as a father sets you up for that kind of thing. The intense training, the extreme discipline, the lack of emotional bonding -- all that shit was part and parcel of growing up in the Umbrella Academy, and Five had internalized it all before he even realized how strange it was.
As if that’s not enough, getting stuck for multiple decades in the apocalypse pretty much cements a skewed sense of normal. When every day is a miserable fight for survival, then yeah, you start to get acclimated to a new type of bad. A day in which you’re not starving to death becomes your new standard for good.
Therefore, to really understand Five’s tolerance for bad, it’s only necessary to consider two basic facts. First, he’s not a stark raving lunatic. Sure, he talks to a mannequin and has a decided lack of interpersonal skills, but he’s functional and self aware in a way that most people in his situation would not be, Delores notwithstanding. Second, he’s alive. That’s not just about survival in a physical sense. There’s a psychological element to it as well. The thought of suicide had of course crossed his mind, more than once. But he didn’t do it, not for decades. Because Five knows how to handle bad things.
Really bad things. He didn’t have a childhood. He was trained in extensive hand to hand combat and paraded around as the cure to the end of the world. He was denied affection, affirmation and overall support. Then, he spent years as the last person alive on the planet. He had to bury his siblings. He carried around a damn eyeball for crying out loud. He ate bugs and rotten food, and he drank rancid water in desperation. He scavenged through people’s houses and stepped over their dead bodies to steal their possessions just to survive. He learned to breathe contaminated air and he can still taste the ash in his mouth. He fell in love with a damn mannequin, okay, and he maintained a healthy relationship with her. Sure, healthy is a subjective distinction. You just have to overlook the fact that she was a mannequin and focus on the fact that Five spent more time in absolute isolation than anyone else on the planet and survived.
These points are an aside, Five knows this. He doesn’t actually like to think about any of it, but he thinks about it all quite a lot, more than he’d like. He thinks about it when he doesn’t meant to, and it comes back to him in lovely little bouts of barely controlled PTSD. He’s never been formally diagnosed -- all their talk of pension plans, and the Commission is skimpy on mental health -- but in his 20s, Five read the entire medical section at the library, and he’d found the volumes on mental health extremely insightful. So had Delores, but for other reasons that are even less relevant at this juncture.
The point. Five has to get back to the point.
The point is this: it’s going to be bad.
And if Five thinks it’s bad, then it’s pretty much the worst thing you can imagine.
He tries to tell himself that the fact that this is all according to plan is some sort of consolation.
It doesn’t work as well as he hopes.
-o-
“It’s just a simple debriefing,” the clerk assures him. “You can relax.”
Five is sitting back rigidly, arms over his chest. He shakes his head. “This isn’t how most agents are debriefed. And you’re not in management. You’re an operative. You’re not here to write a report about me.”
The clerk taps his pen on the table. “All we want is some simple information. Facts.”
“You have facts,” Five says back. “You don’t need facts.”
Licking his lips, the clerk stitches his brow together. “This can be easy,” he says.
“No, it can’t,” Five argues. “You’re not here to make it easy.”
The clerk grins, a little pleased that he’s been caught. “All the same,” he says. “We want information from you.”
Five huffs. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Why did you make this deal?” the clerk asks.
“To save my family,” Five says. “That’s got to be recorded already, though. That’s a bad question.”
The clerk lets it pass. “Why did your family agree to let you?”
“I already answered this,” Five says impatiently. “They’re idiots but they’re not completely stupid. They saw that there was no other option.”
“What do they have planned?” the clerk asks, and he’s trying to sound conversational, but he’s not writing anything down.
Five shakes his head abruptly. “Irrelevant,” he says. “The deal was that my family has complete immunity. No matter what they’re doing, whether it affects the timeline or not, their actions are not within the purview of the Commission.”
The clerk looks less pleased now. “We need information.”
Five tips his head indifferently. “Then ask a question that matters.”
“Tell us about your family.”
Sitting forward, Five stares the clerk down. “All the relevant information is already in my file,” he says. “Ask another question.”
The clerk sits back, a little thoughtful. “You do realize that you’re stuck here. Your cooperation right now can make your time with the Commission much more pleasant.”
Five snorts. “Like yours? Honestly, your yes-man attitude now is even more grating than before,” he says. “What did they do to you?”
“It’s nothing,” the clerk says. “Compared to what they’ll do to you.”
“If you’re insinuating that being in the same room with you for an extended period of time is torture, then I’ll heartily agree.”
The clerk smirks now, tapping his pen once more. “Fine,” he says. “If you don’t want to talk about your family, then tell us about the way you tracked agent movement.”
“You want to wallow in your shortcomings?” Five says. “You were the first one I spotted.”
“Tell me more,” the clerk invites him.
For the lack of something better to do, Five does.
-o-
He answers questions all night, following the train of thought until the question about his family comes back and Five diverts it once again. Around and around, until Five is stifling a yawn. After another few hours, he’s left alone, the light still on and the door locked. He’s not offered food; there’s nothing resembling a bed.
When the clerk comes back some time later, he looks refreshed and ready.
“Just a few more questions,” he says. “That’s all.”
A few more.
A few more after that.
One night becomes a day. Two nights, two days. Five is finally given food and water, stale and tasteless, and he’s left to sleep sitting on the chair with his head propped up on his hand. After a week, they finally provide clean clothes, but he’s still shitting in the tiny hole in the corner. He counts two weeks, three and a month in the tiny little room. Day after day, questions after question.
“We just have some questions,” the clerk insists.
Five, for his part, is no longer sure what the answers are.
-o-
He knows what the clerk is doing, naturally. He understands that he’s being questioned in a way that makes him vulnerable to suggestion, which is supposed to make him less able to protect any potential secrets. Moreover, the careful restriction on daily necessities is a game to make Five desperate. As he is provided with food and water at a level that just barely keeps him functional, the hope is that he will be both pliant and receptive. It’s an attempt at inducing Stockholm Syndrome, but it’s woefully ineffective with a delivery system like the clerk.
Five hates the clerk so much that he takes pleasure in pissing him off, even when he’s starving, cold and exhausted.
It is hard to keep his answers sorted, however. He’s answered the same questions so many times that he’s starting to lose track, and without a regular sleep cycle, he’s not always sure when he’s dreaming. It’s hard to keep tabs on the passage of time, not that time matters at a place like the Commission.
In sum, this is about the craziest that Five’s ever felt.
Yes, he’s counting the years he was in love with an inanimate object.
He tells them things he doesn’t mean to tell them. He confesses secrets that he forgot he was keeping. He tells them about his process, his calculations, all of it. The clerk never writes a word, just taps his pen as he smiles wider and wider the more Five talks.
But every time the clerk asks the question: “What is your family doing now?”
Five remembers.
Five knows.
“Whatever the hell they want,” he replies flatly. “That was the deal, right?”
It ends the interview every time.
-o-
After what Five estimates to be two months, there are apparently no more questions to ask. Or, at the very least, the Commission is looking for answers in a new way. At first, Five is quite glad to be out of the same small room with the same small light and the same small hole and the same small portions of food. When he’s led out of the room, he thinks about how easy it would be to flash his way to freedom, but as tempting as it sounds, that is not the plan.
The plan is to let the Commission do whatever it wants with him.
As long as his family is free.
Besides, he tells himself as he’s marched down the hallway with a fully armed tactical unit guiding him, maybe this won’t be that bad. Maybe it’ll get better.
-o-
Maybe not.
He’s led into what looks like a medical office, and two people wearing white coats greet him warmly. “Hi! You must be Five!” the woman enthuses. “I’m Peggy! Dr. Peggy Lee!”
She’s even more enthusiastic than Dot had been, which Five finds to be incredibly grating. He momentarily misses the snarky tone of the clerk, asking him the same questions day after day.
“That’s a silly question, Peg,” he man chides her but he’s smiling as wide as she is. “I’m Dr. Scott Foster. It’s such a pleasure, Five. We’re big fans.”
Five glares at them, which is a reaction he thinks is quite understated. He’s underfed and sleep deprived, and his sanity has been purposefully tested. It’s debatable if the conditions would qualify as torture, but he’s pretty sure his treatment over the last month or two has been ethically questionable, even for an organization that kills people at will to maintain the timeline. “Great,” he says. “I don’t care.”
Peggy looks surprised by this, and it’s obvious that she’s struggling to keep smiling. She has a nice smile, Peggy. Lots of straight, white teeth, and her hair is perfectly curled and her lab coat has been starched within an inch of its life. “They did say you were a bit on edge.”
“And why not?” Scott says congenially. He beams at Five. For all that Five looks disheveled, Scott is the epitome of dapper. His short hair is slicked to perfect, and his face is as smooth as Five’s despite the fact that Five’s in a teenage body and Scott is clearly pushing 40. “Been pretty rough so far, huh?”
He says it like he’s a buddy, a pal.
Five would like to hope that’s promising.
“Anyway,” Scott continues as Peggy hands him a medical gown. “We’ll need you to get changed, and then we’ve got the bed made up for you, all nice and ready, right over here.”
He gestures across the lab where a medical bed is, indeed, set up. While it is white and sterile, there is clearly a mattress, pillow and blanket. The monitors and equipment around it do look daunting, but it’s been two months since Five’s been in an actual bed. That makes it look pretty damn good despite his better judgement.
Peggy all but puts the gown into his hands. “Do you think you need a hand?” she asks. “Because if you do--”
“I’ll be fine,” Five says despite the fact that he has no idea if he’ll be fine. “But just to be clear. What is going on here?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, buddy,” Scott assures him. “Nothing for you to worry about at all.”
-o-
Five complies because what else is he going to do.
This is the deal.
The deal is that he changes into the clothes, he lets them hook up monitors, he lays down on the bed. He says nothing as they start gathering their supplies, needles and vials and other things Five doesn’t care to identify right now.
Peggy is still smiling when she gives him his first injection, a shot in the arm without his consent.
Scott looks as dapper as ever as he pats Five on the arm. “Just relax now,” he says. “There’s nothing for you to do here. We’ll be doing all the hard work. You just sit back and take a load off.”
This actually sounds pretty good, Five thinks.
Then the drug hits his bloodstream.
And nothing sounds good at all.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
-o-
Talking to Klaus takes much longer than expected, and Five has to buy him dinner, desserts and coffee. In truth, the coffee is for Five, but waiters still think it’s weird for a 13 year old to drink coffee, so hanging out with Klaus has to have some advantage, however small.
By the time they get back to the Academy, Klaus is ready for bed, and Five retires to his bedroom with a sigh. He sits down on his bed and tries to mentally prepare himself for the next few days. He goes over the plan, looking over his notes before closing his eyes and reciting them to himself again.
When he opens his eyes, Ben’s there.
Five doesn’t like the way Ben can slip in and out unnoticed -- it’s an unfair tactical advantage. But seeing as Ben’s dead, it seems petty to hold that against him.
Instead, he picks up one of two remaining packets that he’s amassed, tossing this one on the table next to the chair where Ben is seated.
“If Klaus is asleep, I don’t know if you’ll be able to open it,” Five says without prompting. “But it’s all there. The whole plan. I’ve highlighted special sections that apply just to you.”
Ben glances at it, and he picks it up.
“You’ve been practicing,” Five observes, impressed.
“Klaus has,” Ben reports, scanning the first page quickly. “I think this whole thing has motivated him.”
“Motivated to eat waffles,” Five quips, and he’s glad that Ben can’t insist that they eat food to make the transfer of information go faster or more pleasant or whatever. His stomach feels like it’s about to burst. “I spent the whole day with him, and I’m still not sure he gets it.”
“The details, hard to say,” Ben agrees. He’s already on page three. “But the big picture? He hasn’t stopped training. He knows what’s at risk here. He’s taking it seriously, which is why he can’t show you he’s taking it seriously.”
That’s backward logic, which is the only kind of logic that has ever applied to Klaus. Five accepts it, and turns his attention back to the task at hand. “Well, it’s your turn now,” he says. “We can go over things or you can just ask questions. It’s up to you.”
Of all his siblings, Ben had always been the only one with an intellect to at all rival Five’s. Ben had been a voracious reader in life, but he had always been focused on the emotional response and not the utilitarian value. Still, Five had felt starved for someone who understood him, so the fact that Ben actually enjoyed reading had always been something to draw them together.
Ben puts the packet of papers down. “I think it’s pretty self explanatory,” he says. “It’s the same plan we keep stopping you from.”
“Well, sure,” Five says, matter of fact. “But with a few key changes.”
Ben raises his eyebrows. “Not for you.”
This point doesn’t seem necessary to Five. He makes a face. “Well, that’s why I made up the plans for each of you,” he explains. “This whole thing, it rides on the rest of you.”
Ben is nonplussed, as only a ghost can be. “You’re putting an awful lot of faith in the family.”
He says it like that, says it because he knows what it’s like to be let down. He’s the one who has paid the ultimate price. He’s the one who went on a mission and didn’t come back. For Ben, trust is a palpable thing, known acutely in its absence.
They’re opposites, however. Ben was the first to die, and Five outlived them all. It’s a perspective that has defined them both. Five cocks his head, ever quizzical. “Do I have a choice?”
Ben’s reply is unflinching, unyielding and unhesitating. “Yes.”
This answer is not the one Five wants, nor is it one he expects. It’s hardly fair for Ben to play all sides of the fence. This is the brother who forced him to stage his own intervention. Now, Ben’s sitting here (floating here? Physics!), telling him to watch his back. “It’s irrelevant,” Five says curtly. “So do you have any questions or not?”
“No, I don’t,” Ben says, making no effort to consult Five’s carefully constructed notes again. “I’ve listened to you as you’ve explained this to everyone else. I watched you make it the first time. I know what’s supposed to happen.”
This is a tad on the passive-aggressive side, which is about as cutting as Ben tends to get. Five has the impulse to dismiss it and say that things are good enough, but there’s too much at stakes. It’s coming too fast, too soon. Ambiguity has never set well for him anyway, much to his own personal peril. “You’re not happy about this.”
It’s an observation, one that probably is obvious, but Five says it anyway.
Ben shrugs. “Why should I be?”
“Because,” Five says. “I made a plan that fixes the problem, gets rid of the Commission and protects all of us.”
“Sure,” Ben says. “Assuming everything goes right.”
“I did the calculations,” Five says. “What could possibly go wrong? The numbers--”
“Aren’t the people,” Ben interrupts him. “Your plan is great in numbers and probabilities, but we’re just people. The human factor here is what makes this unpredictable. It makes things dangerous.”
Five can’t help but scoff. “Not having a plan is far more dangerous.”
“So is a blind belief that plans are infallible,” Ben says. “Plans fail all the time, even your plans.”
Five takes that moderately personally. “You turn yourself into a 13 year old one time--”
Ben shakes his head, getting frustrated. “If this goes wrong, the others, they’ll probably be okay.”
“Exactly--”
“But you,” Ben says, still shaking his head. “You won’t be. You haven’t left yourself a single out.”
It’s a fairly accurate assessment, though Five hasn’t put it in such clinical delineations. He sits up a little. “That’s why I’m working hard to make sure you’re all ready. Because once this starts, it’s all up to you.”
“Which is why I want you to be careful,” Ben says emphatically. “You. You have to look out for you, just a little bit.”
This is ironic, and Five can’t help but comment. “Says the dead brother.”
Ben is not amused. “Says the one who actually knows,” he says. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it all again, because I get it. The family comes first. But this is a plan without a second chance. You have something to lose, Five. You have come so far to come back to us, and you have a lot to lose.”
This is sobering, and Five feels a little nauseous, though that could just be the excessive amount of food Klaus made him consume. He swallows. “But if it saves them, then I can’t say it’s not worth it.”
“If you don’t come back, it’ll destroy them,” Ben says. “When you left the first time, that’s what started it, you know? The breakdown. Everything was off, and by the time I died, we’d been falling apart for years. If you don’t come back from this, you won’t be saving any of them. You’ll be condemning them -- and possibly the world.”
Well, that’s not exactly the kind of pep talk Five’s probably craved.
Though, to be fair, it’s probably a perspective he needs. He’s been alone so long; it’s hard to understand the idea of mutuality in a relationship. It’s hard to understand a relationship at all. The world has depended on him on such a cosmic level. The intimacy of the dependence now is somehow more overwhelming.
“You need to know that, Five,” Ben exhorts him. “You need to not forget it.”
Five has no comeback. He has no witty reply. He has a plan.
And now he has a promise.
“I won’t,” he says simply.
It’s all he can offer Ben.
Ultimately, it’s all Ben is looking for.
-o-
He saves Vanya for last.
This is partly to satisfy his own obsessive compulsive ways -- he wants to keep things in numerical order because of course he does -- but it’s also because he knows she’ll be the hardest.
The easiest.
And definitely the hardest.
After all, there is no one he is more comfortable showing emotion to than Vanya.
Which means, there’s no one more inclined to evoke actual emotion from him.
Of all the dangers he’s facing, he’s not sure why this one is suddenly the most daunting. It doesn’t matter, however. Five is a lot of things, but he’s not a coward. He sets out to do the task of briefing Vanya in a totally perfunctory fashion. Which is to say he comes into her room while she’s putting away laundry and puts the stack of notes on her bed, stuffs his hands in his pockets and says, “Any questions?”
She stops, a pair of socks still in her hands. Mom offers to do all this for them, but Vanya insists that she enjoys doing the mundane tasks herself. It’s really all the same to Five. The apocalypse had reinforced the absurdity of being tidy, but he can’t deny that there’s some comfort in the practical delineations of civilization.
None of which matters as Vanya stares at him blankly.
“I made up your notes for the upcoming plan,” he amends awkwardly. “Just, you know. In case you wanted a reference.”
He says it as nonchalantly as he can.
This only seems to intensify her confusion. “In case I had questions about your plan to give yourself up to the organization that has ruthlessly been stalking you?”
He can see what she’s doing. He can see the emotion she is imbuing into the notion. He can see it and deflect it just fine. “There shouldn’t be any surprises, but there are a lot of details, so I thought it might be helpful when I’m gone.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
She blanches, and all Five can think about is peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches with the light left on. Sometimes he is a cold hearted bastard.
“Vanya,” he says, trying to be softer now. He can do this. He can manage advanced mathematical equations that defy the logic of most educated minds. He can surely act like a normal human being. “All the equations work out. The plan is solid. There is no reason to think that this won’t work.”
There are a thousand reasons to think that it won’t work, of course. There’s free will, first and foremost, and the Handler’s right about that much: don’t even get him started.
Vanya is still holding her socks like she’s not sure what to do.
“We can go over it, point by point,” Five says and he hastily picks up the packet. “Or we could approach it in broad strokes, whatever you want.”
“I don’t want to go over the plan,” she says.
The suddenness of her answer takes him by surprise. It’s several moments before he realizes that the answer offends him. “I put a lot of work into this.”
“But you’re leaving,” she says, half gesturing with the sock. “Why would I want to go over that?”
He frowns. “Because it’s part of the plan, Vanya. I thought I had made that clear. I thought you understood. I’m doing this for all of us, but I can’t do it unless you support me.”
“I get that, I do,” Vanya says.
“Do you?” Five says. He puts down the papers again. “Because you’re not acting like you give a shit and this is the one time I really, really need you to give a shit, because a lot of this depends on you from here on out.”
She sighs. “Five--”
“Unless you don’t care,” Five pushes on, somewhat reckless now. It had never been the wine that made him loose-lipped. Always the rawness of the emotions he couldn’t keep at bay when drunk. “Because I mean, there’s always that option, and I can’t stop you once this starts, so if that’s what you want--”
“Five, come on,” she protests.
“No, I mean, it’s okay, I get it,” he says. “You’re super powered now. You’re part of the Academy. You’ve gotten what you always wanted, so who the hell cares about the rest, right?”
“Five--”
“I’ll just let you be--”
She cuts him off by moving forward, fast and sure as she crosses the distance between them. She’s still holding the socks in her hand as she leans in, arms around him, and he can feel the socks against his back for several long moments before it occurs to him what’s happening.
She’s hugging him.
She’s actually hugging him.
Moreover, he’s letting her.
He pushes people away. He slaps their hands, blocks their advances.
Everyone but Vanya.
She hugs him now, and all he can think is that it’s really good to be home. That’s the sort of revelation you have when you’re about to lose it again. Five has never had that great of timing, to be honest.
“I’ll study it, memorize it, everything,” she says, voice brushing against his ear. “But I don’t want to spend my last night with you talking work.”
Although he’s acquiesced to the hug, he does not return the affection. “What do you want to do then?” he asks skeptically, voice muffled by her hair. “On the last night?”
She pulls away. “I don’t know,” she admits, finally putting her socks down on top of the papers. “But I think we can come up with something.”
-o-
They start by getting drinks.
This is, of course, easier said than done. Vanya takes him to the grocery store and he picks out his favorite Bordeaux, and she complements it with fresh marshmallows and peanut butter. They eat on the roof, on one of the abandoned decks that their father had deemed unnecessary.
It’s pretty up there, though. A good view of the city. A good view of the stars.
They talk and they tell stories. They even laugh, and she doesn’t act surprised that Five still knows how. That’s impressive; it still surprises him, every time he does it.
The evening draws to a close with a finality that turns Five’s stomach. Everything ends, he knows. Sometimes in ways more final than people care to imagine. It’s a lucky thing to stand on the precipice of change and to herald its coming. Five knows better than most what it’s like to never have a chance to make amends.
Now that he has the chance, he worries that he’s bungling it.
Badly.
The wine is gone and they’re just eating marshmallows like they’re pieces of the sky as it fades to black. The stars shine overhead, and Five hates the sound of his own heart as it thrums in his chest.
“I still think you should ask questions now,” he comments eventually, staring out over the cityscape.
She is wistful in her reply. “If you’re that nervous, you don’t have to do it.”
“What? No,” he says. “I mean, not really. I mean, I know it’s dangerous, and I know it may not work, but I know that it’s the right thing to do.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying.”
He sighs, but there’s really no way to refute that. He shrugs. “The alternative is more frightening, though.”
“You can’t be scared of the unknown, Five.”
He looks at her. “You have to be,” he says. “I wasn’t, and I paid dearly for that.”
He looks back out across the city.
“Being here, reminds me why it matters,” he says.
“Why what matters?”
“All of this,” he says. “Why I came back in the first place. I mean, you can’t stand here, watching so much life, and come to the conclusion that none of it matters. Of course it matters. Good people, bad people, right decisions, wrong decisions: it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. I’ve seen it when it’s all gone, burned and charred to ash, and let me tell you, there’s nothing more beautiful.”
“So it’s worth the risk?” she presses him quietly.
He looks back to her. “Yes. Every time, as many as it takes.”
Vanya sighs a little and looks up. She is studying the moon. “And to think, I destroyed it.”
“We all destroyed it,” Five tells her. “The interconnected realities--”
She shakes her head. “I still remember the feeling, that surge of energy. I had wanted to kill you.”
“Another bad calculation on my part,” Five says. “I should have told you--”
“But free will, right?” Vanya says, and she shakes her head. “That’s not even my point.”
“Then what?”
She stares back up at the moon, huge and round above them. “You look out and see the possibility of life,” she says. “I look out, and I see the possibility of failure. I know why you’re ready to do this, but you have to understand why I’m not sure I am.”
He looks at her, looking at the moon. Vanya, who had been his greatest comfort, was the one responsible. It’s a hell of a thing, knowing you have the power to destroy the world. If there’s a moon still shining, it’s only by Vanya’s good graces.
She’s extraordinary, that’s for sure. And none of it has to do with her powers.
Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out. His fingers are trembling when he places them over the top of hers. She looks at him in surprise.
He swallows. “This is the right thing to do. I wouldn’t ask you to help if I didn’t believe that. For everyone out there. For everyone right here. It’s the right thing to do.”
She smiles, giving his fingers a squeeze. “I know,” she says. “That doesn’t make it easy.”
Before he can reply, she wraps him in a hug again. This time, it’s stronger, more certain.
“I hate this,” she says, sniffling. “It goes against everything inside of me to just let you go.”
“I came back before,” he reminds her.
“I know,” Vanya says, hugging him closer still.
She knows.
Five knows.
And in the silence that lingers, he lifts a single arm and hugs her back.
-o-
This is preamble, honestly. Five’s being sentimental again. This is becoming a problem for him, and he’s not sure how to curb it. He’s not sure sometimes if he wants to, which makes it all the more worrisome. Maybe he’s finally starting to show his age.
Metaphorically, anyway.
He still looks tiny, which is absolutely ridiculous, but so it goes. It’s a part of the story that’s already told, so Five has accepted it not without reservations, but acceptance doesn’t mean you don’t regret things. It just means you’re done fighting them.
At any rate, this is all background noise. Preamble, like he said. He has to stop getting ahead of himself every single time.
This, though.
This is where the action begins.
This is where the plan is enacted.
This is the important part of the story. This is the part that would be remembered by history books, if linear history could ever capture anything about him. This is the part of the story that would be put into movies, extolled in novels, celebrated in epic poems with iambic pentameter. This is the part of the story that saves his family, saves the world. This is the part with that natural climax. This is that part of the story, so Five knows it’s supposed to be told, and he is willing to live it, just like he always said he was.
It’s funny, though. Because for all that it’s the important part of the story, he’s starting to think it’s not the best part.
Not in the slightest.
That’s a subjective distinction, however. It doesn’t matter, in the scheme of things, which part is best.
It just matters that Five does the job he set out to do.
And so he does.
-o-
He leaves at night, when Grace is charging and Pogo is already in bed. He contemplates one most peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich before he goes, but he’s put this off long enough. He doesn’t bring his calculations. He doesn’t bring anything. Where he’s going, he’s not going to need it.
On his way out, he finds his siblings in the living room. They’re seated on the furniture, one by one. Luther looks nervous as he holds his head up. Diego can’t stop fiddling with his knives. Allison looks like she may have been crying. Klaus fidgets with the tie on his leather pants. Ben hovers behind him with a grave expression. Vanya is still crying, for what that’s worth.
Five sighs. “I have to go alone,” he says. “This has to be a legitimate offer. If any of you show up, the Commission will back out and call it a trap. I have to give myself up, no strings attached, in exchange for your unfettered freedom and safety. If we do this, you will all be free, completely free, with no Commission interference for the rest of your lives.”
“We know,” Luther says.
“We’re not going,” Diego adds.
“But we had to be here,” Allison says.
“Like, you’re going going,” Klaus implores.
“You don’t have an escape plan,” Ben reminds him.
Vanya sniffles and gathers herself. “So we had to say goodbye.”
Five is both surprised and uncomfortable. It’s a great thing to find out that your family loves you. But it’s awkward as hell. Delores never made the parting of ways this difficult.
“This is all just a part of the plan,” he says, because they’re approaching this was a finality that speaks nothing of the intricate calculations he’s done for them. “It’s not supposed to be a goodbye.”
“We know, we know,” Luther says.
Diego holds his knife still for a moment. “We’ve memorized your damn plan, man.”
“We’re not going to let you down,” Allison promises.
“We really hope we don’t let you down,” Klaus clarifies almost instantly.
“It could be awhile, though,” Ben says softly.
Vanya is about to lose control of her emotions again. “Too long.”
They talk about time like they understand it. They talk about sacrifice like they have some notion of it. Five’s outlived them all, and the costs to him are more profound than they could possibly grasp. Is there a part of him that wants to be done? Probably. He’s not looking forward to what comes next. Vanya’s declaration -- too long -- is an understatement if it is anything.
But that’s family.
It defies logic and reason. It makes all your calculations break down.
“I know,” he says, because this isn’t the time for lies. All that he has left is the truth. “But I trust you.”
That’s the statement that matters. Five has loved his family all along. But he hasn’t trusted them. He came back to save them, but he hadn’t been ready to tell them the whole story. That had been his mistake but he’s learned.
If he hasn’t learned it yet, what comes next is sure to.
They were all standing now. In the grander scheme of things, that doesn’t mean much, but Five can’t deny that there’s something to be said for solidarity. For remembering what it’s like to be together.
Before he has to go his own way.
“Well,” he says, nodding his thanks to them. “You know what you’re supposed to do.”
He says it like an imperative.
He can see it on their faces: they understand it for the plea it is.
They stand together like that, a moment frozen in time.
Because the best moments can transcend eternity.
-o-
Moments end, however.
Before things get sentimental again, Five bobs his head, waves his hand and walks out into the night. He doesn’t look back.
Why would he look back?
Sometimes the only way to go back.
Is to keep moving forward.
-o-
His first stop is the phone booth. He dials the number without hesitation. He knows this time it will work.
When it connects, he keeps things to the point. “This is Number Five. I’m ready to make a deal. And, yes, I know I’ve said this before. And, no, my family isn’t coming. And, of course, you will come with a full tactical team just to be sure. But you will come. Because we all know that this is the endgame, sooner or later. Let’s make it sooner.”
He disconnects and makes his way to the broken-down warehouse.
It’s time.
God spare him the irony: it’s absolutely time.
-o-
He doesn’t have to wait long.
Maybe the Commission is eager to take him up on his offer. Maybe they don’t want to give his family a chance to intervene. Maybe Five just has no sense of time anymore.
Either way, Five hears her high heels on the concrete before she saunters into the ring of light where Five has poised himself, hands in pockets, expectant and ready.
Surprise isn’t quite the right word for how he feels, but the wry smile on his face is apt enough. The familiar figure is honestly what he’s expected, even if it does defy the logical restraints of the real world. But the Commission exists outside those restraints, and she looks like she’s barely stitched together. The makeup is impeccable, but she looks less and less human every time he sees her. In retrospects, he wonders if she was ever human.
It doesn’t matter now.
Five cocks his head, clicking his tongue. “I didn’t think you’d come yourself,” he says. “I would have thought you would be a little reluctant to go in the field considering how poorly it’s gone for you.”
Her smile is less convincing than ever. “Well, one of these times it’s bound to go the way it’s supposed to,” she says. “Though you do make a compelling case for the power of free will. It’s tiresome, I think.”
She’s fully in the light now, and she’s not alone. Five can see the shadows of the strike team that have filled in around them. They’re armed, and there are a lot of them. Just a step behind her, the store clerk has been resurrected. He’s not smiling, but he’s holding a briefcase, glaring down at Five with obvious disdain.
“And you brought a friend,” Five quips. “But he doesn’t look like he really wants to play.”
The Handler’s poise is contrasted with the barely restrained rage in the figure behind her. It takes something for her not to turn around and visibly reprimand her. The coldness of her voice is warning enough. “He knows his place, and despite his feelings, he’s accepted that,” she says. “The real question is, are you ready to accept yours.”
“I’ve been ready for a while,” he says. “My family took some convincing.”
She raises her eyebrows, but there’s a twinge of concern deep in her eyes. “And how did you do that, pray tell?”
“The calculations were impossible to argue with,” he says. He shrugs. “They just needed time to see that it was a good plan.”
This is what she wants to hear, but she is understandably skeptical. “And what is your plan exactly?”
Five rocks back on his heels. “Same as before,” he says. “I turn myself over to you and submit myself to whatever orders the Commission dictates. I will not resist. I will not flee or fight. As long as my family is safe and unbothered by your agents, I will be fully compliant for as long as I live.”
She regards him carefully. “Surely you can see why this can’t be the welcome reunion I was ready to offer,” she says. “Your actions over the last two meetings have ruined a lot of goodwill. There are a lot of people at the Commission who think the idea of offering you a place is too generous. There are some at the Commission--”
The clerk clears his throat.
The Handler tips her head in vague acknowledgement. “--who feel that you deserve a more dramatic fate.”
Five can’t say that’s good, but he can’t say he’s surprised by that either. He’s not acknowledged this to his family, but he’s considered the possibility that the Commission may simply kill him. If that was the desired outcome, then it seems like it should have happened already, but the Handler does seem to have a thing for flair.
Nonetheless, Five’s not about to give her the satisfaction. He all but rolls his eyes at her. “You know my value or you wouldn’t be here yourself, in the flesh,” he says. “Or, you know, what’s left of it.”
Her laugh is mirthlessly cold. “Your value, yes,” she says. “But you’ve proven that I can’t trust you.”
“That’s why this deal is the right one,” he points out. “You get me, and as long as you keep my family alive and untouched, I’ll do your bidding, whatever it maybe. But I require that my family be left alone. No observation. No surveillance. And you never touch them, no matter what.”
“And if we do that, if we promise that absolute immunity for the rest of their lives, you’ll work with us willingly?” she asks to clarify.
“Absolute immunity,” he agrees. “And you have my absolute loyalty.”
She chuckles. “That’s cute, Five,” she says. “But I don’t want your loyalty anymore. I’m just looking for your submission.”
That’s appropriately ominous, and Five exhales heavily. The pretenses are growing cumbersome to him, and he has the urge to slit the smirking face of the store clerk clean off his neck. Five knows the impulse is reckless and irrational, and he’s not going to do it, but the thought of it still makes him smile. “For absolute immunity, you can do whatever you want with me.”
It’s a pretty bold promise, he knows that. The look of satisfaction on the Handler’s face -- she knows it, too. She thinks she’s getting the better end of the deal.
She holds her hand out to him. “Do we have a deal, then?” she asks.
Five takes her hand and shakes it. “We do.”
She can think whatever the hell she wants.
Five knows she’s wrong.
-o-
The clerk opens the briefcase.
And the whole Five knows is gone.
The plan, he reminds himself as panic threatens to rise in his gut. This is all part of the plan.
-o-
The plan.
What the hell is his plan anyway?
Sure, he’s made an excessively detailed account with all possible caveats for each member of his family, but in all that work, he’s outlined nothing for himself after this point. No, as far as his plan is concerned, all his meaningful actions are finished. Such an oversight had been thoroughly intentional. His part had had limited possibilities; his only role was to endure.
At the time, when he came to that assessment, it had been a practical consideration.
Sitting in what appears to be a cell block back at Commission HQ, it seems less practical now.
Of course, he can’t be entirely sure this is the HQ -- or that HQ even exists in the same time and place as it did before. However, the overall construction looks similar -- gray and dreary -- but it lacks the unsettling charm of the rest of the place. There are no smiling case managers typing away here.
No, here there is nothing but a table and two chairs. A small drain is in one corner and a single bulb, guarded in a protective cage, is mounted at the ceiling. The single door is reinforced at the hinges, and there is a small window lined with bars.
Determining it to be a cell block is natural as it has the charm of a prison.
Somehow, in the jump, he’s already seated. The Commission has really been working on its technology. At his back, the Handler pats him tidily on the shoulder while the clerk busies himself closing up the briefcase again on the other side of the table.
“I have to say,” the Handler chirps. She sounds positively relieved to be back, and her smile is almost beaming. “I wasn’t sure we’d get here.”
“I am good to my word,” he tells her. He hates being seated while she’s standing, but he does his best to act nonchalant. “As long as you are good to yours.”
She shrugs, and if she’s feigning, then her acting is better than Five’s today. “I’ll leave all that to legal,” she says. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, my role in this is over.”
Five tries not to show how much he isn’t expecting her to say that; it is a jarring statement in a way he hasn’t anticipated. “What?”
She notices, and it seems to please her. A lot. “I was ready to be done with you before you stopped the apocalypse, to be honest,” she says and her conversational tone belies what Five knows to be her true intent. “But those in higher management wanted to give me a chance to redeem myself. Imagine how unpleasant that was for me. Recovering from a grenade and then a bullet to the head?”
“I didn’t shoot you,” Five says quickly.
“No, but you did turn Hazel, didn’t you?” she muses. “And let me tell you, they were not happy that the apocalypse was averted. Not happy at all. I told my superiors that you were an exceptional case, and they were sympathetic, they were. But still. Trust must be earned, mustn’t it? So here I am: earning it. All thanks to you and your tiny little schoolboy shorts.”
She says it like she’s chastising a small child for getting a grass stain on his Sunday best.
“Don’t get me wrong, please,” she says. “Lesser agents would have faced must stiffer punishments. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but I’m feeling a bit peaky right now. I am one of the most decorated employees at the Commission. Think about that, now. Me, on track to continue climbing the corporate ladder. Me, who has been the face of the Commission for, well, centuries. Me, on probation like a new recruit.”
She’s painting a vivid picture, composing a tableau where she is the tragic hero. Five’s nerves are on edge just listening.
“I’m not going to lie, it was humiliating being sent back in the field to get you,” she confesses. Across the room, the clerk is sitting down in the chair patiently. “Not once. Twice! Twice I was sent out to bring you in. Failure, I’m sure you can see, was never an option, so I will be very pleased to finally hand in a report of total success. My job is finally done.”
She heralds that with some fanfare, beaming at Five.
Five, still seated on the chair beneath her, has no response to that.
Her smile is sickeningly sweet. “Let that be a last warning for me,” she says, her voice low and sultry. “I’ve given them years of service, unending loyalty and top notch performance. One mistake, and it was all gone. If that’s how the treat their best and brightest and most loyal, then do consider, Five, how they’ll treat someone who has repeatedly and brazenly betrayed them?”
It’s almost couched in kindness; he almost thinks she means it as a word of warning.
That’s probably why he resists it so steadfastly.
“The contracts the Commission offers its agents -- they aren’t fair; they’re not even real,” Five defends himself, puffing his chest out. That used to be impressive when he wasn’t some damn beanpole. “You coerce agents into working for you on false pretenses, and then you give time frames that can never be traced. It’s a rigged system. It was only a matter of time before someone rebelled.”
“Oh, agents rebel from time to time,” she teases him. “Most of them just don’t get very far.”
“Then it’s not my fault that Commission usually hires idiots,” he says, and he shoots a pointed glare at the clerk.
The clerk glares back.
The Handler laughs. His malice makes her utterly delighted. “Keep that fighting spirit,” she says. “That should make what comes next more interesting for everyone involved.”
“But not you? Really?” he asks. He’s not sure why he doesn’t want her to leave. Maybe it’s because she’s been his only contact with the Commission for years. She’s the devil he knows. The devil he’s beaten. “You’ve been after me forever.”
“And then you tried to kill me, multiple times,” she points out. “So that fantasy I had of you being my successor -- well, it’s long since abated.”
“So you coming for me--”
“Was a corporate decision,” she says. “I told you all along, I’m just a cog. You’ll find that other parts of the machine are far more vicious than I am.”
Five shakes his head, not sure what to do with this information. Somehow, he feels like thi sis taking an unexpected turn for the worse. The plan is still intact, of course. It just seems a whole lot less straightforward than it had ten minutes ago. “What does the Commission want with me anyway?”
“Good question,” she says, leaning forward to bop him on the nose. She waggles her eyebrows and bites on her bottom lip eagerly. “Let’s find out.”
-o-
Five finds out, all right. As soon as the Handler leaves, the clerk rounds on him. He doesn’t speak as he puts the briefcase down. A pad of paper and a pencil have appeared on the table. He sits down in the chair across from Five.
“So you’re in charge now?” Five asks. “After what happened last time?”
“Like she said,” the clerk says. “The Commission believes in second chances.”
His voice sounds different, less confident, less free. Five can see that he’s holding himself differently, more rigid. Second chances. Rehabilitation. It sounds like an aggressive approach to break the will through any means necessary. The Commission can take you apart -- and they will -- if only to put you back together according to their choosing. “They’ve broken your spirit, then.”
There’s a flash of anger in his face, but he bites it back quickly. “They’ve taught me restraint.”
“You’re not having fun anymore,” Five observes. “What’s the point of the job if it’s not fun?”
“Being dead isn’t fun either,” the clerk says back sharply. “The Commission has the time to wait for anyone to grow up. Even you.”
“My body is 13,” Five reminds him.
At this, the clerk smiles. “Old enough for you to know better.”
Sitting back, Five crosses his arms over his chest. “Do they really think you can break me? You?”
“No,” the clerk says calmly. “They think that time will do that to you all on its own.”
Five swallows back his reply.
The clerk smiles, pen in hand. “Now,” he says. “Let’s get started.”
“With what?” Five asks.
“Your debriefing, of course,” the clerk says. “Just a few questions is all. All we want is a few answers. That doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?”
-o-
It doesn’t sound bad, maybe.
It is bad, though.
Very, very bad.
At the start, Five doesn’t know this, but he does suspect. He has to suspect; he knows the Commission. He knows what he’s done to the Commission. He knows that there are fates far worse than death, and that all of those fates have probably been reserved for him. That’s speculation, however. The odds are simply good that things are going to be bad. This is the fact his siblings had worried about and the fact that he had readily dismissed. Bad in contrast to the good had balanced out all right in his equations. Practically speaking, however, he’s starting to have his doubts.
See, Five actually has a very high tolerance for bad. Growing up with Reginald Hargreeves as a father sets you up for that kind of thing. The intense training, the extreme discipline, the lack of emotional bonding -- all that shit was part and parcel of growing up in the Umbrella Academy, and Five had internalized it all before he even realized how strange it was.
As if that’s not enough, getting stuck for multiple decades in the apocalypse pretty much cements a skewed sense of normal. When every day is a miserable fight for survival, then yeah, you start to get acclimated to a new type of bad. A day in which you’re not starving to death becomes your new standard for good.
Therefore, to really understand Five’s tolerance for bad, it’s only necessary to consider two basic facts. First, he’s not a stark raving lunatic. Sure, he talks to a mannequin and has a decided lack of interpersonal skills, but he’s functional and self aware in a way that most people in his situation would not be, Delores notwithstanding. Second, he’s alive. That’s not just about survival in a physical sense. There’s a psychological element to it as well. The thought of suicide had of course crossed his mind, more than once. But he didn’t do it, not for decades. Because Five knows how to handle bad things.
Really bad things. He didn’t have a childhood. He was trained in extensive hand to hand combat and paraded around as the cure to the end of the world. He was denied affection, affirmation and overall support. Then, he spent years as the last person alive on the planet. He had to bury his siblings. He carried around a damn eyeball for crying out loud. He ate bugs and rotten food, and he drank rancid water in desperation. He scavenged through people’s houses and stepped over their dead bodies to steal their possessions just to survive. He learned to breathe contaminated air and he can still taste the ash in his mouth. He fell in love with a damn mannequin, okay, and he maintained a healthy relationship with her. Sure, healthy is a subjective distinction. You just have to overlook the fact that she was a mannequin and focus on the fact that Five spent more time in absolute isolation than anyone else on the planet and survived.
These points are an aside, Five knows this. He doesn’t actually like to think about any of it, but he thinks about it all quite a lot, more than he’d like. He thinks about it when he doesn’t meant to, and it comes back to him in lovely little bouts of barely controlled PTSD. He’s never been formally diagnosed -- all their talk of pension plans, and the Commission is skimpy on mental health -- but in his 20s, Five read the entire medical section at the library, and he’d found the volumes on mental health extremely insightful. So had Delores, but for other reasons that are even less relevant at this juncture.
The point. Five has to get back to the point.
The point is this: it’s going to be bad.
And if Five thinks it’s bad, then it’s pretty much the worst thing you can imagine.
He tries to tell himself that the fact that this is all according to plan is some sort of consolation.
It doesn’t work as well as he hopes.
-o-
“It’s just a simple debriefing,” the clerk assures him. “You can relax.”
Five is sitting back rigidly, arms over his chest. He shakes his head. “This isn’t how most agents are debriefed. And you’re not in management. You’re an operative. You’re not here to write a report about me.”
The clerk taps his pen on the table. “All we want is some simple information. Facts.”
“You have facts,” Five says back. “You don’t need facts.”
Licking his lips, the clerk stitches his brow together. “This can be easy,” he says.
“No, it can’t,” Five argues. “You’re not here to make it easy.”
The clerk grins, a little pleased that he’s been caught. “All the same,” he says. “We want information from you.”
Five huffs. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Why did you make this deal?” the clerk asks.
“To save my family,” Five says. “That’s got to be recorded already, though. That’s a bad question.”
The clerk lets it pass. “Why did your family agree to let you?”
“I already answered this,” Five says impatiently. “They’re idiots but they’re not completely stupid. They saw that there was no other option.”
“What do they have planned?” the clerk asks, and he’s trying to sound conversational, but he’s not writing anything down.
Five shakes his head abruptly. “Irrelevant,” he says. “The deal was that my family has complete immunity. No matter what they’re doing, whether it affects the timeline or not, their actions are not within the purview of the Commission.”
The clerk looks less pleased now. “We need information.”
Five tips his head indifferently. “Then ask a question that matters.”
“Tell us about your family.”
Sitting forward, Five stares the clerk down. “All the relevant information is already in my file,” he says. “Ask another question.”
The clerk sits back, a little thoughtful. “You do realize that you’re stuck here. Your cooperation right now can make your time with the Commission much more pleasant.”
Five snorts. “Like yours? Honestly, your yes-man attitude now is even more grating than before,” he says. “What did they do to you?”
“It’s nothing,” the clerk says. “Compared to what they’ll do to you.”
“If you’re insinuating that being in the same room with you for an extended period of time is torture, then I’ll heartily agree.”
The clerk smirks now, tapping his pen once more. “Fine,” he says. “If you don’t want to talk about your family, then tell us about the way you tracked agent movement.”
“You want to wallow in your shortcomings?” Five says. “You were the first one I spotted.”
“Tell me more,” the clerk invites him.
For the lack of something better to do, Five does.
-o-
He answers questions all night, following the train of thought until the question about his family comes back and Five diverts it once again. Around and around, until Five is stifling a yawn. After another few hours, he’s left alone, the light still on and the door locked. He’s not offered food; there’s nothing resembling a bed.
When the clerk comes back some time later, he looks refreshed and ready.
“Just a few more questions,” he says. “That’s all.”
A few more.
A few more after that.
One night becomes a day. Two nights, two days. Five is finally given food and water, stale and tasteless, and he’s left to sleep sitting on the chair with his head propped up on his hand. After a week, they finally provide clean clothes, but he’s still shitting in the tiny hole in the corner. He counts two weeks, three and a month in the tiny little room. Day after day, questions after question.
“We just have some questions,” the clerk insists.
Five, for his part, is no longer sure what the answers are.
-o-
He knows what the clerk is doing, naturally. He understands that he’s being questioned in a way that makes him vulnerable to suggestion, which is supposed to make him less able to protect any potential secrets. Moreover, the careful restriction on daily necessities is a game to make Five desperate. As he is provided with food and water at a level that just barely keeps him functional, the hope is that he will be both pliant and receptive. It’s an attempt at inducing Stockholm Syndrome, but it’s woefully ineffective with a delivery system like the clerk.
Five hates the clerk so much that he takes pleasure in pissing him off, even when he’s starving, cold and exhausted.
It is hard to keep his answers sorted, however. He’s answered the same questions so many times that he’s starting to lose track, and without a regular sleep cycle, he’s not always sure when he’s dreaming. It’s hard to keep tabs on the passage of time, not that time matters at a place like the Commission.
In sum, this is about the craziest that Five’s ever felt.
Yes, he’s counting the years he was in love with an inanimate object.
He tells them things he doesn’t mean to tell them. He confesses secrets that he forgot he was keeping. He tells them about his process, his calculations, all of it. The clerk never writes a word, just taps his pen as he smiles wider and wider the more Five talks.
But every time the clerk asks the question: “What is your family doing now?”
Five remembers.
Five knows.
“Whatever the hell they want,” he replies flatly. “That was the deal, right?”
It ends the interview every time.
-o-
After what Five estimates to be two months, there are apparently no more questions to ask. Or, at the very least, the Commission is looking for answers in a new way. At first, Five is quite glad to be out of the same small room with the same small light and the same small hole and the same small portions of food. When he’s led out of the room, he thinks about how easy it would be to flash his way to freedom, but as tempting as it sounds, that is not the plan.
The plan is to let the Commission do whatever it wants with him.
As long as his family is free.
Besides, he tells himself as he’s marched down the hallway with a fully armed tactical unit guiding him, maybe this won’t be that bad. Maybe it’ll get better.
-o-
Maybe not.
He’s led into what looks like a medical office, and two people wearing white coats greet him warmly. “Hi! You must be Five!” the woman enthuses. “I’m Peggy! Dr. Peggy Lee!”
She’s even more enthusiastic than Dot had been, which Five finds to be incredibly grating. He momentarily misses the snarky tone of the clerk, asking him the same questions day after day.
“That’s a silly question, Peg,” he man chides her but he’s smiling as wide as she is. “I’m Dr. Scott Foster. It’s such a pleasure, Five. We’re big fans.”
Five glares at them, which is a reaction he thinks is quite understated. He’s underfed and sleep deprived, and his sanity has been purposefully tested. It’s debatable if the conditions would qualify as torture, but he’s pretty sure his treatment over the last month or two has been ethically questionable, even for an organization that kills people at will to maintain the timeline. “Great,” he says. “I don’t care.”
Peggy looks surprised by this, and it’s obvious that she’s struggling to keep smiling. She has a nice smile, Peggy. Lots of straight, white teeth, and her hair is perfectly curled and her lab coat has been starched within an inch of its life. “They did say you were a bit on edge.”
“And why not?” Scott says congenially. He beams at Five. For all that Five looks disheveled, Scott is the epitome of dapper. His short hair is slicked to perfect, and his face is as smooth as Five’s despite the fact that Five’s in a teenage body and Scott is clearly pushing 40. “Been pretty rough so far, huh?”
He says it like he’s a buddy, a pal.
Five would like to hope that’s promising.
“Anyway,” Scott continues as Peggy hands him a medical gown. “We’ll need you to get changed, and then we’ve got the bed made up for you, all nice and ready, right over here.”
He gestures across the lab where a medical bed is, indeed, set up. While it is white and sterile, there is clearly a mattress, pillow and blanket. The monitors and equipment around it do look daunting, but it’s been two months since Five’s been in an actual bed. That makes it look pretty damn good despite his better judgement.
Peggy all but puts the gown into his hands. “Do you think you need a hand?” she asks. “Because if you do--”
“I’ll be fine,” Five says despite the fact that he has no idea if he’ll be fine. “But just to be clear. What is going on here?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, buddy,” Scott assures him. “Nothing for you to worry about at all.”
-o-
Five complies because what else is he going to do.
This is the deal.
The deal is that he changes into the clothes, he lets them hook up monitors, he lays down on the bed. He says nothing as they start gathering their supplies, needles and vials and other things Five doesn’t care to identify right now.
Peggy is still smiling when she gives him his first injection, a shot in the arm without his consent.
Scott looks as dapper as ever as he pats Five on the arm. “Just relax now,” he says. “There’s nothing for you to do here. We’ll be doing all the hard work. You just sit back and take a load off.”
This actually sounds pretty good, Five thinks.
Then the drug hits his bloodstream.
And nothing sounds good at all.