Nuclear // Number Five

0.08 × Coming to Terms

When I'm in a summer I forget how much I love her when she's in a groove. 

Libby sat at a comfortable distance away from Five as they discussed the apocalypse with Luther. She imagined he still felt weird about the whole thing, and didn't want to make him feel any weirder about it by touching Five in any way. She hadn't imagined their relationship would come to be known by their other siblings, and she was still pretty uncomfortable that it had come to light in the way that it did. 

"So, let me get this straight.. you've been in love since we were all thirteen, and now that you're back, it just... escalated?" Luther was trying to wrap his head around it as best he could, Libby could tell. "And you don't have cancer in any form? Even after spending all that time together back then?"

"I told you," Libby explained, sliding a little bit closer to Five. He responded by resting a hand gently on her knee. "I'm no more dangerous than a microwave. As long as I'm calm, a Geiger counter would read out at about 0.3, and humans can generally live pretty safely at a 0.2. When I get anxious or scared is when it starts going up, which is why Dad had that lead blanket made. Ultimately, I was only locked in the basement because he feared prolonged exposure by living in close quarters and going on missions with you could cause a higher risk of cancer in all of you."

Luther slowly nodded, his gaze falling to Five's hand on her thigh. "So you're not really dangerous at all?"

"Only when I want to be," Libby stated matter-of-factly. 

"When's it supposed to happen? This.. apocalypse," Luther asked, focusing his attention back to Five. Libby was glad that they had finally got through to him, at least. Having the muscle on their side was comforting. 

"Well, I can't give you the exact hour, but from what I could gather we have four days left," Five explained, sliding over toward Libby so that their legs were touching. She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. 

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Luther asked, leaning closer to the two of them. 

"It wouldn't have mattered," Five reasoned, moving his hand from Libby's thigh to wrap his arm around her waist. She was thankful that the hard-ass of the family was able to understand them. She figured he would be the hardest to convince out of all of their siblings. 

"Of course it would," Luther continued, "We could've banded together and helped you try to stop this thing."

"For the record, you already did," Five answered, and Libby could tell it was starting to get hard for him to talk about it. She reached over and grabbed his other hand, rubbing her thumb across the back of it. 

"What do you mean?" Luther asked, trying to wrap his head around the whole thing. Libby pitied him for being so dense, but she kept her mouth shut and let Five answer his questions.

"I found all of you," Five muttered, "Your bodies." 

"We die?" Luther asked, and Libby's internal dialogue was starting to get annoyed at him. He asked so many questions that had obvious answers. It was hard for her to focus on the conversation. She was just concerned for Five having to relive the whole thing for the hundredth time.

"Horribly," Five replied simply. "You were together, trying to stop whoever it was that ends the world." 

"Wait, how do you know that?" Luther questioned, looking inquisitively at the two of them. Libby let go of Five's hand and allowed him to produce the glass eye from his pocket. 

"This was clutched in your dead hand when I found you," He tossed the eye at Luther, who caught it and started to examine the specimen. "Must've ripped it out of their head right before you went down."