°you shouldn't have come along°

▪︎part thirty nine▪︎

Five peeked out from behind Luther, confused as everything went silent and still. Luther stood, arms outstretched before him with a stressed expression while Hazel and Cha Cha were both frozen mid air. Y/n stood frozen a few yards ahead of them and he stepped out from behind Luther making his way to her. He noticed the blue shade that radiated around her telling him that she had just spatial jumped before everything was frozen. He slowly made his way around to face her and was horrified when he realized why she had jumped.

There a few inches from her head was the bullet one of the assassins had shot when they were hit by Klaus. He was horrified and he quickly pushed the bullet aside, not wanting to see it so threateningly close to her any longer. Of course she would put herself in harm's way for them. It was in her nature to be selfless and Five loved her for it but it really made him worry, so much so he found himself angry. "What the hell is wrong with you?" He scolded, cupping her face and staring into her eyes. She stared into the air where the bullet had once been, a fearless glint in her eye even though she had been inches from death.

"Neat trick, isn't it?" A woman's voice called out. Five let his hands fall from Y/n as he turned to the Handler who stood the side of the road, wearing the familiar all black attire and carrying one of the customary briefcases. She pulled away the black veil from her face and took off her sunglasses, giving Five a smile. "Hello, Five. You look good, all things considered." She complimented, putting a hand out to gesture to him. "It's good to see you again." Five lied, looking down at the ground as he thought carefully about his next move. "Feels like we met just yesterday. Course, you were a little bit older then. Congratulations on the age regression, by the way. Very clever. Threw us all off the scent." She admitted. Five scoffed, "Ah, well, I wish I could take credit. I just miscalculated the time dilation projections, and-well, you know. Here I am." He explained giving her a forced smile as he threw his arms out in a exaggerated motion before letting them fall again. "You realize your efforts are futile. So why don't you tell me what you really want?" She asked putting her briefcase behind her back as she glanced around at the scene. "I want you to put a stop to it." Five demanded. "You realize what you're asking for is next to impossible, even for me. What's meant to be is meant to be. That's our raison d'être." She explained as Five pulled a gun from his coat.

"Yeah? Well how about survival as a raison?" He threatened, pointing the weapon at the Handler with a fierce stare. "I'll just be replaced. I'm but a small cog in a machine. This fantasy you've been nurturing about summoning up your family to stop the apocalypse is just that. A fantasy." She insisted, waving her fingers. She took a few steps towards him making him grip the gun tighter as he held his position against her, not allowing her to have an advantage. "I must say, though, we're all quite impressed with your initiative, your...stick-to-itiveness, really quite quite something. Which is why we want to offer you a new position back at the Commission, in management." She proposed putting her hand out in surrender. Five chuckled not faltering for a second. "Sorry, what's that now?" He questioned almost not believing what she offered. He knew there was a reason behind everything she did and that she wasn't joking about giving him the job. The only thing he had to decipher was whether or not her intentions would negatively impact him and his goal.

"Come back to work for us again. You know it's where you belong." She pleaded. "Well, it didn't work out too well the last time." He argued. "But you wouldn't be in the correction division any longer. I'm talking about the home office. You'd have the best health and pension, and an end to this ceaseless travel. You're a distinguished professional in schoolboy shorts." She said almost laughing as her gaze dropped to his uniform. "We have the technology to reverse the process. I mean, you-you can't be happy like this." She said, pushing Five's gun down. "I'm not looking for happy." He retorted. In all truth he was happy. He didn't care if he appeared decades younger than his real age. As long as he had Y/n he was the happiest man on Earth, an Earth that he intended on saving.