Attacca ─ Five Hargreeves

14. Fatal Trouble

At one point, slowly, everything started to recover. Not all at once, little by little. The air was less toxic, they could breathe and see freely without being stuffed by a piece of cloth and a pair of goggles, even though Genevieve had regularly doffed it for years, but now she could take it off without Five scolding her. And in some moments back, rain had also washed away the land, once in a blue moon, but it had happened. She remembered the soaring joy just seeing how the raindrops brushed the entire surface, it was undoubtedly similar to witnessing something historic. And the plants, oh, that time when green began to drape the surroundings, she nearly lost her mind.

It was extremely beautiful, Genevieve truly felt like the first human to perceive the formation of a new world.

Five, well, Five being himself, he just watched in silence from behind the woman. Even so, she still noticed the pure fascination shining in his eyes, it was enough to prevail upon him that if Earth was making a start to pull through, he too could find a way back. Yes, unfortunately, he was still struggling with the same conundrum over and over again. The optimism was still there, almost dowsed yet still burning at the same time. The picture of his family was still the point of support for him to find an accurate formula, he just couldn't stop worrying about them, and the plan to take Genevieve somewhere far away from here still swirled intensely within his mind.

In the forty-five years they'd been traversing the apocalypse together, Five barely had the courage to use his power in full capacity, he had never really attempted to go back twenty years in the past, the furthest they had gone was fairly skipping seasons, and he thought that was enough of a prelude to the grand voyage. The two were already in their mid-fifties, there was no way they were going to wait for another fifty years.

"Today," he murmured, walking back to where they stayed with a bottle of wine in his hand. "It has to be today."

Five had been saving up all his strength, reworking the equations hither and thither, he wasn't going to mess it up again this time. But the moment he landed his gaze on Genevieve, standing there staring at the string of numbers he had written, his determination wavered. Fear instantly cocooned him, he might not be afraid of it failing, but if it backfired and affected her too, he just couldn't forgive himself. She was already suffering enough with the periodic headaches that wouldn't seem to go away, he couldn't dump another burden by causing her to be stuck in a worse situation than this.

"Those numbers are killing me," she commented with a laugh once she noticed him. "Wish I was young again to understand all of this."

For some obvious reason, the sight of her broke his heart. How her youthful features had begun to fade altogether, replaced by the signs of aging. Although the progress seemed slow, perhaps adjusted by her healing abilities as well, it only kept reminding him that they were truly not kids anymore. They had been stuck in the apocalypse for years, pretty much their entire lives had actually taken place here.

"Come sit next to me," he told her, patting the hard surface of the stone before he poured the liquid into a glass. "Save this for the big day."

"What big day?"

"Our anniversary."

Genevieve scoffed. "We're not married."

"Yet."

After the confession, it did bring them closer, more intimate at times, but there was no major step to the momentous echelon, no spontaneous marriage, no formality in their relationship. They remained as partners, but now with a solid caveat that she was his woman and he was her man, that was all. Modest, yet somehow it had a deeper meaning. It had been said that what they had was always greater than just a title, that day he only wanted to let her know how he felt about her. He didn't expect her to reciprocate his feelings, but her warm smile and tight embrace expressed all he needed to know.