|Doppelgänger| Five Hargreeves

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖𝟗

First person Pov.

I sat comfortably on my borrowed desk while petting the black cat on my lap. It had been about an hour since we arrived at that office, and so far, Luther and Diego hadn't put us in any trouble. Everything seemed to be going well, so I was starting to think I was a pretty good babysitter. Until Diego approached me with a frown on his face, making me think something went wrong.

_"Y/n. You know where Lila is, don't you?"-He asked, almost accusingly. I sighed. He ended up realizing sooner than I was hoping for.

_"Yeah, I do. You shouldn't worry about it, though. Aren't you enjoying working in the CIA for a day?"-I tried changing the subject, getting his attention away from Lila's disappearance.

_"This is legs and eggs, it ain't the real thing."

_"Oh. You realized that too."

_"You knew that already?"-I shrugged at his question. He was the only one who didn't know, actually.

_"Okay, this is not what I came here to talk about. Where is my wife?"-I rolled my eyes as my attempt to distract him didn't work. The cat on my lap purred quietly as I scratched his neck.

_"She's fine and she'll come home soon. That's all you really need to know."

_"Alright, then. Did you know she met up with Five in the middle of the night? That's what she was lying about. Maybe you should start worrying too, huh?"-Diego said as if he was revealing a shocking thing to me, which would be, if I didn't know that already. I let out a sigh.

_"Diego, Lila is not hooking up with Five, if that's what you think. First of all, it's 8 AM, a bit too early to be getting freaky. Second of all, they would never, and you know that."

_"It's not that early."-My brother furrowed his eyebrows.

_"May I remind you, Five is still a 60 year old man in his mind."

_"...You have a point."-He nodded in agreement. It was my turn to change the subject, things were getting a bit too detailed.

_"What I'm saying is, you shouldn't be concerned about this. Lila is fine, you two are fine, me and Five are fine."-I said, and the cat on my lap slowly got up and jumped to the ground. I fixed my blazer that was now full of cat hair.

_"Things haven't been good between me and her. I fucked up."-Diego said, his voice almost regretful. I looked up at him.

_"What did you do?"

_"It's not really what I did, it's what I didn't do. I haven't been...emotionally present. You know what I mean?"-I hummed with his answer. I somewhat understood.

_"I guess. What made you act that way?"-I leaned back on my chair, wanting to fully pay attention to him.

_"Life's been hard. This isn't really what I used to picture for myself, working as a newspaperman, having three kids that we didn't even plan. I just thought it wasn't what would make me happy."

_"And what do you think now?"

_"...I was wrong. I grew so used to having them around that I guess I forgot I should be grateful for it."-I nodded with his response. I got up from my chair, trying to clean my blouse.

_"Great. So you know what to do."

_"What?"

_"Start actually appreciating them."-I told him like it was obvious, but his confused face made me have to further explain.

_"Remember our childhood. Remember the family we had. Don't you want your kids to never experience anything like that? Don't you think this life is much better than risking your life and the lives of the ones you loved everyday?"-I looked Diego straight in the eyes. He seemed to finally understand. I spoke again.