chapter seven

Blair didn't make it far before she passed out. She and Klaus had split ways for safety, but not even five minutes after her brother left her, the teenage girl's legs gave out and she crumpled onto the ground. Her pain was overwhelming, and with no better ideas, she decided to circle back to the motel.

Hazel and Cha-Cha's car wasn't there when she went back. The Volvo's spot had been replaced with a familiar Chevy Caprice, and Blair felt a glimmer of hope. She couldn't talk to the cops, not when she was written down as officially dead. As best as she could, she limped her way towards the car and got into the unlocked passenger seat.

Not even a minute later, a pissed off Diego left the motel. He didn't even notice Blair until he had sat down in the driver's seat and was starting the engine.

"Holy shit," Diego scoffed, "what happened to you?"

Blair rolled her eyes. "I was kidnapped, you asshole. Can you take me to the academy?"

Diego's eyes trailed down from Blair's face to her disfigured knee. His face scrunched up in disgust and he averted his vision to his rear-view mirror so they could back up. "I'll take you to my place."

The car ride was uncomfortably silent. Something had pissed Diego off, and his outlet for his anger was apparently gunning the car way above the speed limit. Blair was an adrenaline junkie, but while she would usually love the high speed car ride, this time it was just a ride of pain. The roads in their city were littered with potholes, and every time Diego hit one too fast the car would shake and Blair's knee was slam into the low-hanging dashboard.

Blair hadn't even been to Diego's place before. She knew he lived at a boxing place or whatever, but she hadn't been there for herself. It turned out the place was relatively lose to the motel, or maybe they just got there so quickly because of Diego's blatant disregard for the speed limit.

Diego didn't even bother to help Blair inside. She had to limp her way in with no help while simultaneously trying to not bring attention to herself. When she finally reached Diego's room, Luther was holding Diego up in the air while Five was sat on the bed with a look of confusion.

"I can do this as long as it takes you to calm down," Luther stated.

Diego finally stopped struggling and Luther dropped him back on his feet. Blair limped her way further into the room and shut the door behind her, the loud noise attracting the attention of her brothers. She waved weakly before placing her hands on the stair railing and using it to jump over the stairs. Luther rushed forward and steadied the girl from falling over before simply picking her up and setting her down on the bed next to Five.

Diego didn't seem to care about Blair's predicament when he started snapping, "our brother's been pretty busy since he got back. He was in the middle of that shootout at Griddy's, and then at Gimble Brothers after the guys in masks attacked the Academy looking for him."

"None of which is any of your concern," Five replied calmly.

"It is now," Diego panted, "they killed my friend."

Luther, who was the only one who seemed to care about Blair, scrunched up his face and said, "we need to get Blair help."

Blair waved her hand dismissively. "I'll live." She adjusted her position so that she was leaning against the wall with her bad leg draped across Five's lap. "Five, who are those people and what do they want?"

"They work for my former employer." Five's eyes were directed down at Blair's leg where he was pulling up her pant leg to take a look at her knee. "A woman called The Handler."

Blair's head snapped up in surprise.

She knew that name. That fucking name had given her her dream life— she had given Blair a utopia. And yet there was an anxiety that came with the admiration, an anxiety driven by the strange departure the woman had taken from Blair's life. The Handler was a genius and she could track Blair down easily, and yet when Blair had gotten tossed back into the present, she had not bothered to track Blair down.

Was there a reason? Was there a reason as to why The Handler hadn't taken Blair back to her own time? If there was a plan, why didn't Blair know it? And, most importantly, why the fuck had Blair seemingly slipped out of the commission with no consequences?

"She sent them... to stop me," Five continued. "Then, soon as Diego's friend got in their way, well, fair game."

"And now they're my fair game," Diego said. His voice had quieted down, but it had turned deadlier without the extra volume. "And I'm gonna see to it they pay."

Five's fingers were gently prodding at spots on Blair's knee while he stated, "that would be a mistake, Diego. They've killed people far more dangerous than you."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Diego called out while he left the room, the door slamming shut behind him. Awkward silence washed over the room as the three siblings stared at the door Diego had just slammed, its door frame shaking slightly due to the weak foundation.

Blair yelped in pain as Five's finger hit an especially painful spot on her leg. The kneecap was surrounded by different shades of red as the skin swelled up to protect the bone in one disgusting visual. Blair's head had tilted back against the wall and her back arched as the pain in her knee managed to both throb and burn.

Five stood up and put Blair's leg down on Diego's bedsheets carefully. He grabbed a few pillows and propped it up before moving towards Luther.

"Let's find her some pain medication," Luther suggested, turning on his heel to go dig through Diego's drawers.

Meanwhile, Blair was sat on the bed, a thousand and one thoughts racing through her mind at break-neck speed. She couldn't quite figure out if she was overreacting or not. She'd seen tons of people dislocate their knees when she was dancing back at Vaganova, so why was hers on the verge of making her tear up? Perhaps it was the hours of torture she had also endured that was setting her over the edge, or perhaps she was making a big deal out of nothing.

Blair dug her nails into the bed sheets. Calm down, she told herself. You're alright. You're just overreacting.

Luther and Five returned with a glass of water, an Advil, and very grim expressions. Five helped Blair sit up and watched as she choked the pill down before drinking all of the water. Luther took the glass and set it on top of Diego's dresser.

"That looks really serious," Luther commented, his eyes dropping down to Blair's knee for a sliver of a second.

"I'll be fine."

Five's look of disbelief was enough for Blair to understand his opinion, but instead he also stated, "you'll likely need surgery. Not only did Cha-Cha dislocate it, she also fractured it."

"I'll be fine," Blair insisted. "I could use some food, though. I have eaten in a hella long time."

Luther didn't seem to like Blair's attitude concerning her knee, but he complied to her request and made her a sandwich nonetheless. Along with the sandwich he made coffee which he divided into two cups and gave to Blair and Five.

Blair happily took the coffee, not even caring that it wasn't a type she liked. The exhaustion was sinking in the longer Blair laid on Diego's bed, but at least the coffee would help. She had realized with every passing hour that Five's apocalypse was a lot more intense than the ones Blair had dealt with in the past, and every passing hour boosted the concern taking over Blair's brain. The explanation Cato used to jokingly tell Blair every time she asked why he ran himself to the bone working was starting to hold more meaning now.

Blair could sleep when she was dead.

"So...," Luther began uncertainly, "you were a hit man?"

Blair nodded and Five said, "yes." With a grimace she realized that Luther was talking to Five, not her.

"Uh... I mean, you had a code, right? You didn't kill just anybody."

"No code," Five replied, "we took out anyone who messed with the timeline."

"What about innocent people?"

Five looked up from his hands. "It was the only way I could get back here."

"But that's murder," Luther stated.

"Jesus, Luther, grow up," Five scoffed. "We're not kids anymore. There's no such thing as good guys or bad guys. There's just people, goin' about their lives. But when the world ends, all those people die, including our family." He sighed. "Time changes everything."

Blair had never been good at math.

It was something no teacher had been able to fix. Not Reginald Hargreeves, not any of Blair's professors at Vaganova. If there was some piece of DNA that was supposed to make Blair good at math, then she had either lost it or simply never been given it. Blair couldn't quite pinpoint where the struggle was worst (whether it be geometry, calculus, trigonometry), all she knew was that she didn't mix with numbers very well. Languages, English, and history had always been fine subjects for her, but she drew her line at math.

Blair had woken up in Five's room. She wasn't sure how she got there or when she got there, but she was laid on a chair with her knee wrapped in a brace and a pair of crutches laying on the ground beside her. The boy himself was standing on his bed with a piece of chalk in his hand and thousands of equations sprawled all over the walls in front of him.

As much as she wished she could, Blair could offer no help to her brother. Math simply wasn't her thing.

Instead she watched her brother work on a brain level much higher than hers— she watched as he wrote random equation after random equation and made sense out of the sequences. Blair wanted to ask when she had been moved into Five's room and why, but Five was working and Blair didn't want to interrupt him.

"I think I found something," Five commented. "It's tenuous, but promising."

The floorboards squeaked as Luther entered the small bedroom. "What is all this?"

"It's a probability map," Five replied without even sparing a glance towards his brother.

"Probability of what?"

This time Five turned around when he said, "of whose death could save the world. I've narrowed it down to four."

"Are you saying one of these four people causes the apocalypse?" Luther asked.

"He's saying that one of their deaths could prevent the apocalypse," Blair realized. She had somehow failed to notice what Five was actually doing and how she and the rest of her team had done it all the time when they worked for The Handler. Of course, Blair was never the one writing the equations, but she usually was the one sticking a bullet in their target's head.

"Oh," Luther said. "I'm not following."

Five dropped his hand holding the chalk and explained, "time is fickle, Luther. The slightest alteration in events can lead to massively different outcomes in the time continuum. The butterfly effect. So all I have to do is find the people with the greatest probability of impacting the timeline, wherever they may be, and kill them."

The teenage boy jumped off the bed and picked up his notepad to write something down. Meanwhile, Luther walked to the other side of the bed and was reading the names Five had put in a small circle of chalk with a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes.

"Milton Greene," Luther read. "So who's he, a terrorist or something?"

"I believe he is a gardener," Five said.

Luther's head snapped towards Five. "You can't be serious. Wait, this is madness, Five. You-" Luther trailed off as Five pulled a giant bag out from underneath his bed. "Wh-Where'd you get that?"

"In Dad's room. I think he used it to shoot a rhinoceros. It's similar to the model I used at work. Nice shoulder fit and highly reliable."

Blair eyed the gun and exhaled, "that's a goddamn pretty gun."

"But you can't— this guy Milton is just an innocent man," Luther protested, completely disregarding Blair's comment.

"It's basic math," Five argued. "His death could potentially save the lives of billions. If I did nothing he'd be dead in four days anyway. The apocalypse won't spare anyone."

"We don't do this kind of thing."

Blair straightened up in her chair. "Luther, you don't have to do anything. Five and I will get our hands dirty and you can sit pretty and happy. Is it really worth it to end the world just so that one innocent gardener doesn't have to die for another four days?"

"I can't let you go and kill innocent people," Luther shook his head. "No matter how many lives you'll save."

"Well good luck stopping me," Five challenged.

Luther crossed the room in a few large strides and grabbed the barrel of Five's gun. Blair shot up from her chair and grabbed her crouches, ready to wack one of her siblings with one if they got out of line.

"You're not going anywhere," Luther said.

Blair groaned and snapped, "you'd rather we let a gardener live for four more days before ending the entire world? You do realize that by us not killing him, by cause and effect, we will be the ones who caused the apocalypse. That's a lot more innocent lives on our hands than if we just kill Milton."

Five struggled to yank the gun out of Luther's ridiculously strong grip. "Let go of the gun."

"No," Luther replied, "I'm not going to let you kill innocent people until we've explored every other option. Deep down, you two are good people. I will not let you kill Milton."

Five and Blair glared Luther down. Even though Luther was no longer afraid of Blair's glare, he still felt uncomfortable under the angry black eyes practically peering into his soul. It was unnerving, and yet he would not back down.

"We can find a way to fix this. I'm on your side."

There was a tense silence. It was obvious Five wouldn't be able to take the gun from Luther, and Blair reckoned that her support would hurt more than help. She was still to weak to compete in a tug of war with Luther, so her next best option was to glare at him until he backed down.

And yet it was Five that cracked and let go of the gun. "There is one way. But it's just about impossible."

"More impossible than what brought you two back here?"

episode five : number five