Chapter Text
In hindsight, Number Five should have guessed their subway would be on the express route. He’d been raised his whole childhood to prepare for the worst, and forty-five years in an apocalyptic wasteland didn’t quite help with his already pessimistic personality.
The only thing was, he never seemed to quite be able to prepare for just how bad “the worst” was.
Example A: him and Lila blinking to the mysterious subway station where his powers kept transporting him to… only to get on the subway in search of answers and a way to stop the apocalypse and get lost, because of course it was an express. Of course.
“Shit,” he muttered in response to the voice on the empty subway’s intercom telling them they were on the express to who-knew-where. He turned to Lila-who really would not be the person Five would choose to be stuck with for however long it took to find their way back to their family and the fourth looming apocalypse (because of course there had to be another one) if he had known this would happen, but on the other hand, she was smarter than most of his family and people that he knew (low bar, but still) and she would probably be the best option in terms of finding their way out of this chaotic underground. But at least nobody else would find ways to push his buttons like she always somehow could.
(Unless you counted Klaus. Or Diego. Or Luther. Actually, come to think of it, he was pretty sure he would be annoyed with any of his family stuck with him.)
(Although anything was better than being alone.)
“Definitely shit,” she replied, sending him a grin that bordered on chaotic, proving she was not as concerned as Five was about this whole situation. (Although, at a closer look, there was something on her face that could have been fear…But no, Five convinced himself he was imagining things. Lila wasn’t nervous, and neither was he. There was nothing to be concerned about. This was what Five told himself as he tried- and failed- to keep himself from worrying.) “Don’t worry, old man,” Lila continued, obviously noticing the lines of worry etched across Five’s face.
"Don't call me that. I'm not that old."
“We’ll find the info we need and get out before you can say Kugelblitz,” Lila finished, ignoring him.
Five huffed in response, and they fell into a silence, watching out the windows as they sped past darkened platforms, the sound of the subway rolling over the tracks the only noise that filled the car. Lila moved over one seat so she was beside him. Five didn<t comment and pretended not to care, but really, it felt nice to have somebody close to him, seeing as he could already feel the panic rising in him at the thought of not being able to help his family; of being- once again- alone and powerless to help them, his time travel having stolen him away from them for the second time.
All because of his idiotic idea that he could save the world, save his family.
As if he could do anything without them. Without them, he was nothing. Without them, he was a killer, a cold-blooded assassin ready to get rid of anyone in his way. He had a mission, always moving forward to get back to a family who he had left behind in the first place and a world that he hadn't been there to protect. Nothing could distract him.
But when it came to the six of them, he felt off-kilter, because he knew that he could never truly hate them, or God forbid harm them in any way (he felt that he hadn’t relayed that message clearly enough, especially when it came to his conversation in Oblivion with Viktor, often rehearsing apologies to the shampoo bottles in the shower- because how could he threaten his younger brother like that?- even if he could never say them to his younger brother's face), and he hated that feeling of not being in control, of loving those people so much he would quite literally throw his sanity away in order to save them. And he would save them. Time after time, he wanted to be there for them, make up for lost time together.
And yet here he was, too far away to do anything but try to get back to them and hope they were alive and okay. Again.
After about another half an hour of nearly complete silence (with the exception of Lila asking “Are we there yet?” at least five times, just to get on Five’s nerves), the subway finally stopped at a station nearly identical to where the two started out, giving Five a spark of hope he didn’t usually feel, that feeling when the Handler offered him a way to get out to the wasteland, that feeling when he finally figured out the equations to get back home with his briefcase- that hopeful feeling that sounded something like finally, I’m free.
Five was up out of his seat before the train even started slowing down, his eyes widening as soon as the person on the intercom informed them this was the stop where they would be getting off. Lila was close behind him, stretching her arms and yawning before getting up to meet him at the door and pushing him back the slightest bit, saying “Wouldn’t want a tiny person like you falling in between the crack!” much to Five’s annoyance. He gave her his most terrifying glare (she grinned in return, and he tried to ignore the twinge of pain he felt whenever somebody mentioned his size or his body’s age- that feeling of knowing he grew so much and got reduced to someone so young, so stupid- that feeling of being powerless, once again), and with that the two stepped off the train and into the tiled station.
At further glance, the station did have a few differences that where they had blinked to previously. The sign (which Five assumed had the location of the stop on it, although the writing on it looked like no language he’d ever heard of) had different symbols on it, and the tiles- which had previously been grey- were now a dark blue, almost exactly the colour of what the Umbrella Academy uniforms looked like when Five was young.
He shook the thought from his mind. There was no time for him to reminisce on his childhood at the moment. In fact, there was never really a time time to do that.
Push the feelings down, Five. Not right now. Just get back home.
“Okay, I’ll look for a map, or something, and you-“
“Try to find a way out of here, I know, Fivey,” she said, flicking his head. (Five imagined this was what it was like to have an older sister who wasn’t raised to be pitted against him and his siblings, but he shook himself before he could really mourn him and Allison’s never-really-there relationship.) Not. Right. Now.
“Oh great, three days with Klaus and you’re already learning his idiotic nicknames for me.”
“Oh, c'mon, don’t get your taco in a twist, Fiveroony.”
“That’s not even a good one.” (He ignored the part of him that made his mouth want to start twitching at the bad pun.)
He and Lila looked around the station for clues in silence after that, not really having anything to say, seeing as she was concerned enough about getting back to her kids and Diego, Five presumed, and him about his family (although he would never admit it to Lila- if she asked, he just had to get back to save the world). Finally after about ten minutes, she called out from down a narrow hallway with the same blue tiling that Five hadn’t even noticed, telling him she thought she found a way out.
“There’s some sort of staircase over here,” she said, but Five was already blinking over, lurching forward to blink, when-
“Ah- Ow!” In the blink of an eye, he found himself on the ground, his forearms the only thing keeping him from face planting on the tiles. Right, of course, he couldn’t blink. Not in the subway station, even though it had been his blinks that had brought him here in the first place. He had tested before when he’d first gotten there alone, but there was no way out other than the stairways up to a door where you first blinked- or, at least, that’s how Five presumed it worked. If only he and Lila had gone up there instead of searching for clues on this goddamned subway, and then he wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Although, he supposed “if only” was the story of his life.
“You okay?” Lila asked in response to Five’s cry. Five quickly got up and brushed himself off as her footsteps grew louder and she poked her head around the corner of the tunnel.
“Fine,” he mumbled, slightly embarrassed, although nothing on Lila’s questioning face looked mocking. It almost looked …concerned, in fact.
Five laughed to himself at the thought. He was too smart to be thinking things like that.
Lila shrugged and followed him down the hallway, which was empty albeit for a staircase leading up to a closed set of large wooden doors with golden handles.
Five gripped the railing as he climbed the stairs, knowing he tripped because of his nonexistent powers being… well, nonexistent, but also not wanting to risk looking like an idiot in front of Lila (again).
Speaking of her- Lila fiddled with the doorknob for a second before swinging it open and revealing what looked exactly like Five’s cheap apartment he'd been living in for the past five and a half years- the CIA paid him pretty well, enough money to afford a fancier one, but Five did spend a lot of money on decent cups of coffee every morning, and he squirrelled away part of his paycheck every month in case of his siblings ever needing anything for emergencies. Plus it was the apartment he’d bought when he’d finally saved up enough when he first got to town, before the CIA, and as an avid hater of change, Five had just decided to stay. The apartment wasn’t particularly close to his job- in fact, it wasn’t close a all- but Five had to admit, he enjoyed the nearly-empty streetcar ride that he took every morning and afternoon, where he was able to put on his headphones, listening to music for half an hour until he got to his job. It felt peaceful.
“Hm,” Five hummed. He thought it would feel good to be back, for sure, but something felt… off.
“Oh great, we’re lost again.”
“No, this is my apartment… I think... we must be back.” Fives eyes narrowed in contemplation. This apartment didn’t seem like the one he’d left behind when he locked it before going to his niece’s birthday party days before.
“Oh thank God,” Lila sighed in relief, seemed to remember something, and immediately took out her phone to see if there was any signal, (seeing as there didn’t seem to be any in the subway, they’d checked) but frowned. “Seriously, Five? Why did you willingly choose to get a home somewhere with no reception?”
That was it. There was definitely something wrong. “I didn’t,” Five said. “Either your phone is broken, or…”
“-Or my phone can’t connect with reception across different timelines,” Lila finished for him, sadness splashing across her face that Five chose to ignore.
Five nodded solemnly, still lost in thought, not even noticing Lila looking around the room that didn’t quite belong to him.
“I won’t lie, I didn’t take you as one to have such a large photo of your family hanging up. I mean, of course you would have one, but I expected you to make it secret."
Five whipped around to see that, yes, there was a large framed (slightly blurry) image of him, Viktor, Klaus, Luther, Diego, Allison, and (Sparrow?) Ben at the entrance of some sort of amusement park, the signs leading into it calling it “The Happiest Place On Earth”. For some reason, Klaus and Luther were wearing mouse ears.
And Five was smiling. That smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled like that. There was some sort of twinkle in his eye, his dimple seemed deeper, and his happiness- it looked real.
Five hadn’t felt like that since… Well, since he was thirteen years old, feeling like he was the smartest kid alive for figuring out time travel, feeling like a hero as he watched Viktor play violin in his room the night before he left, thinking I’m going to get you out of here, Seven. He thought true happiness must have been something he lost in the apocalypse, something he would never be able to find or get back.
But it seems like this version of him did it. Somehow. A really good therapist, maybe? Some sort of drug?
Unless this version of him had never left in the first place. The photo version of him smiled down smugly with his smug little dimple and his smug little arms around Allison and Klaus.
Five wanted to throw up.
“This isn’t my room Lila, we know this.” (Truthfully, back at Five’s real apartment, he did have a small framed picture that he kept beside on his bedside table of his siblings plus Lila from their first family reunion a few months into the new world, but he wasn’t about to admit to that.) Five turned his attention back towards the door to get back to the subway and (hopefully) find their way back to the right timeline, but-
“Where the fuck did the door go?!” Lila exclaimed.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Five muttered, opening the door to his closet, searching for where it could have gone, but they had entered the room from (seemingly) the wall, and the door- or whatever sort of magical time portal it was- was gone.
“Okay, this is not good.”
“You think?” Lila hissed, trying to sound annoyed, but Five could hear the underlying nervousness in her tone. That fear of never getting to see their family again. That fear that Five had been stuck with for almost five decades, that fear he was not going to go through again.
“Uh, Five, you good?”
Five could barely hear what Lila had said, let alone understand it. He felt his breathing getting rapid, that voice in his mind shouting, you’ve done it again, you’ll never be able to save anyone, you-
“-ive. Five!”
“What?” Five snapped out of it and looked up at Lila, only to find confusion, and -was that pity?- in her eyes.
“You were kinda zoning out mate, I was just checking to-“
“I’m fine,” Five snapped, because he was. He looked down from Lila to keep himself busy, and inhaled deeply a few times, leaning back against the wall to steady himself. And that’s when he heard it.
The sound of someone walking up front steps. The jingling of locks.
Click.
“Shit,” he and Lila said in sync, the pity gone from her face and replaced by fear. Somebody was unlocking the door to the house, unintelligible sounds of them muttering coming from downstairs. Lila and Five glanced at each other for a brief moment before scrambling to find a spot to hide, eventually deciding on crawling under the twin-sized bed. It was a right squeeze and pretty dusty, with a few clothes shoved under the bed (Five would never let his room get so dirty- the real Five), but they made it work. Five held his breath and heard Lila do the same as the person came up the stairs.
“-he did not.” It sounded like the person was actually people, and they were getting closer. In fact, whoever had just spoken sounded a lot like-
“Five. Would I lie to you?!” A different person answered, sounding slightly amused… Wait, was that… Viktor?
"You lied to me last night about there being no more ice cream." Somebody who sounded like a third person snort-laughed, although Five hoped it was just Viktor. If this became a fight, two-on-two would be easier.
“That was necessary."
"How could that be nesse-"
"Anyways, and then Diego was like ‘I bet I could!’ so Luther obviously had to join as well, and now they’re both here at the fair just… buying out the hot dog stand. Ben sent pictures in the group chat.”
“It’s pretty hilarious,” another voice that had to be other-Lila’s chimed in. “I feel like a part of me should be worried, but at the same time… It's Luther and Diego, I think they can handle it.”
“I feel the opposite,” Other-Five replied jokingly as he opened the door to the room, making other-Viktor laugh.
“Ooh, Fivey, you should hang it up here.” Lila and Five could only see Other-Lila's ankles and feet under the bed as she walked across the room to presumably gesture where she wanted other-Five to hang… something.
“Yeah, that would look nice.” Viktor’s left foot tapped on the ground methodically out of boredom, maybe, something Five couldn’t recall him ever doing in his universe.
“I was actually thinking over the bed.” There was the sound of shuffling feet moving across the room towards Lila and Five before the bed squeaked with the sound of someone jumping on it. Lila flinched, hitting her head on the metal frame of the bed.
“Ow!” she hissed.
There was a beat of silence.
“Did you guys hear that?” Other-Viktor asked steadily, only a hint of nervousness in his voice.
“Hear wha-?” Other-Lila began asking before Other-Five interrupted. “Yup.” The bed squeaked again with the sound of someone jumping off and before Five could escape or do anything, his doppelgänger leaned down and poked his head so he should see under the bed.
Lila stiffened. The two Fives spoke at the same time as they made eye contact.
“Shit.”