Ruins (Five Hargreeves)

Thirty - Reunion

NUMBER FIVE WAS NOT AN EASY MAN TO RATTLE. He'd seen it all, done it all, and then some. Nothing and no one could rattle the infamous Number Five.

Sure, he could be surprised, but he wasn't rattled. He could be confused or shocked or terrified, but he didn't let it stop him. He clenched his jaw, shugged his shoulders, and ploughed ahead through whatever shit he'd landed himself in. He didn't get rattled. He just didn't.

The only exception, of course, was her.

Five Hargreeves was tired. It was only the afternoon but Five had been exhausted for the last forty-five years. He'd tried to save the world, then failed. He accidentally scattered his family across time in Dallas, Texas. He arrived in Texas himself yesterday, after witnessing another apocalypse on November 25th, ten days from now. This one was going to be a neclear holocaust. Classic.

He'd tried to find his family. He'd found Luther last night, and apon receiving news of the oncoming apocalypse, said he didn't give a shit. He'd found Diego about an hour ago after he escaped the nuthouse he'd been put in. He was trying to save the president, JFK. Five was trying not to kill him.

Now here he stood, Diego on his right and his new crazy girlfriend, Lila, on his left. Elliot was a paranoid fanatic who believed them all to be aliens. Five had decided to use his place as a base of operations. His home was nice, though he kept a dentist chair in his living room for reasons Five didn't really care about. Normally it was shoved in the corner, and a coffee table placed between the sofa and set of armchairs in the middle of the room. She'd done some redecorating.

The coffee table had been moved, the dentist chair put in its place. Elliot sat there, sweat-soaked and shaking, arms and legs bound, gag shoved in his mouth. She stood behind him, leaning against the top with a flip knife in hand. She twirled it round and round her fingers faster than Five could see, flipping the blade out and in and out and in and Five could only stare at her for a moment.

When he spoke, his voice was soft and disbelieving. "Jay."

"Five." Hers was cool and sharp as the blade she held. She flipped the blade out with one final spin and rested the tip against the top of Elliott's head. "Been a while."

He shrugged. "Two days."

"Two months." She said, harsher than he'd have expected.

He considered it for a moment, tried to imagine. It had only really been one and a half days without her and Five was already feeling her absence like a hole in his chest. He'd spent every spare moment trying to think of where she'd have gone. Elliott said when she showed up she'd looked dead. She'd called his name again and again until someone found her, alone and bleeding on the alley floor. They'd called an ambulance, and a few days later Elliott found an article in the papers saying she'd disappeared from hospital. That was the last he'd heard. It hadn't eased Five's mind.

She looked down at Elliott, twirling the blade on the top of his head. "Whoes this?"

"Oh." He said casually as he could, slipping a hand into his pocket. "Jay, meet Elliott. Elliott, Jay."

Through the gag, Elliott whimpered.

Jay rested the knife flat on his head, staring at Five with dull, dangerous, familiar grey eyes. "What's wrong?"

"What?"

"You're taking too long to answer. You do that when you're thinking and you do that when something's wrong."

He shifted, swallowed, met her gaze. He owed her the truth after everything he'd put her through. "The apocalypse followed us here. We have until the 25th to save the world."