chapter eight

There were a lot of things Blair disliked. She disliked math, she hated discriminatory people, and she loathed seaweed, amongst other things. One of the things on Blair's seemingly never-ending list of things to avoid was awkward silences. It had never been something she liked, and it never would be. They were just too, well, awkward.

And yet, there Blair sat, with her leg propped up on the other seat in the back row of the car she, Luther, and Five took to make a deal with Hazel and Cha-Cha. Blair had been told to stay by the car when it was time for the deal to be made for two reasons, one) she would very likely try to kill Hazel and Cha-Cha as soon as she was given the chance, and two) Blair's knee was still very unstable and neither brother wanted her to be in the middle of the fight if one should occur. For the next hour or so, that car would be Blair's base, and as they pulled up on the road they were scheduled to meet Blair's kidnappers at, that car was filled with awkward tension.

Luther stopped the car on a flat section of the road where they could see the small hills in front of them. The road was built so strangely that Blair found herself wondering what possessed the architect to design it that way, and why there were so many hills in it. It was likely the heavier pain medication Blair had taken that was making her on the verge of giggling at the basic design of same random road out in the country.

Five sighed before transferring his gaze from the fields outside the windows to his brother in the driver's seat. "You know, I never enjoyed it."

"What?" Luther asked.

"The killing," Five responded. "I mean, I was... I was good at my work, and I... I took pride in it. But it never gave me pleasure." He sighed once more. "I think it was all those years alone. Solitude can do funny things to the mind."

"Yeah, well, you were gone for such a long time," Luther commented. "I only spent four years on the moon, but that was more than enough. It's the being alone that breaks you."

Blair didn't speak up. She hadn't suffered through solitude like her brothers had. In fact, she had the opposite. She'd fallen in love, she'd made friends for life, and she'd definitely gotten the best outcome of getting blasted into the past possible. There was a guilt gnawing away at her as she thought about her brothers slowly going insane while she chugged a bear or partied with friends.

She didn't deserve to have that good of a life. Her brothers deserved that.

"You think they'll buy it?" Luther asked.

Blair leaned forward and rested her elbows on the shoulders of her brothers. "They're desperate. The Commission would kill them if they knew about this, to be honest."

Both brothers looked at her with confused faces.

"I used to work for them, too," Blair shrugged. "A story for another time."

Five shrugged it off as well and added, "they'll also be stuck here until they get it back."

"Well, I should hold onto it," Luther said. "In case they make a move on you."

"Okay, Luther, but be careful," Five reminded him. "I mean, I've... I've lived a long life, but... you're still a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it."

A hum of an engine interrupted their sentimental conversation, and the three Hargreeves peered through the front windshield. Coming over one of the hills was a car that most likely held the assassins themselves, Hazel and Cha-Cha.

"Here we go," Five muttered.

Five, Luther and Blair got out of the car and headed towards the center of the road. They were an odd bunch to look at; a freakishly large adult with a sketchy briefcase, a thirteen year old boy in a school uniform, and a thirteen year old girl with crutches and a Mossberg 500 held in one of her hands.

Hazel and Cha-Cha had once again donned their masks. Blair hated that they had to see her with her crutches, she hated that she had to give them that satisfaction, but she had no other option. While Five walked towards the assassins getting out of their car, Blair hopped onto the trunk and leaned her crutches against the car on her right side.

Blair had never learned how to read lips. She knew she should have back when she was an assassin, but Connor had been able to do that and wherever Blair went, Connor went too. But now Connor wasn't there and Blair had to try and figure out what was happening between Five and the assassins just based on their body language. The Mossberg 500 was placed in Blair's lap gently, but if the need arose, Blair could get it aimed and firing in virtually no time.

After maybe a minute of conversing, Five headed back towards Blair and Luther while Cha-Cha headed to the phone on the side of the road. Five leaned himself against the truck next to Blair and flashed her a slight smile.

"What happens now?" Luther questioned.

"Now we wait," Five told him.

A twinkling noise caught Blair's attention. She turned around as best she could and looked down the road. Riding over one of the hills was an ice cream truck, and the closer it got, the more distinct its tune was. "Ride of the Valkyries" seemed like an odd choice for an ice cream truck, in Blair's opinion.

It was almost comical the way everything had stopped. Hazel and Cha-Cha had paused to stare at the truck as well as it interrupted the serious mood on the little strip of road. An ice cream truck was not a usual occurrence in deals with assassins, and it's blatant out-of-placeness felt like the tether reminding Blair that other people didn't make deals with assassins to stop the apocalypse in their free time.

"Is that her?"

The brightly colored van drove past the Hargreeves, and as Blair looked in the windows, she saw none other than Klaus and Diego Hargreeves. Klaus was waving at them maniacally as he continued to drive forward, his eyes full of craze and possibly alcohol.

"The hell is he doing here?" Five asked.

As Klaus and Diego got closer to Hazel and Cha-Cha, the assassins started firing at them. Their guns weren't proving to be effective and the duo had to dive out of the way to avoid getting run over. Someone fired a gun, and then everything froze.

Blair's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as everything stopped. The truck, the bullet, the shouting, everything had stopped. It was like Blair was in a photo, or a very literal still life.

A flicker of movement to Blair's right caught her eye. Five. Five was moving. He ducked out from behind Luther and offered his hand to Blair. Apparently he was also aware that she could move as well. With his help, Blair hopped off of the trunk and got her crutches ready to walk. Slowly, the two siblings moved towards where Hazel and Cha-Cha were leaping away from the ice cream truck.

"Neat trick, isn't it?"

The siblings turned around to see The Handler standing in the middle of the road, her black trench-coat flowing around her ankles gracefully. She took off her sunglasses and scanned over the two teenagers.

"Hello, Five," she nodded, "Blair. You look good, all things considered."

"It's good to see you again," Five said.

The Handler tilted her head to the side. "Feels like we met just yesterday. Course, you both were a little bit older then. Congratulations on the age regression, by the way, Five. Very clever. Threw us all off the scent."

"Ah, well, I wish I could take credit," Five stated. "I just miscalculated the time dilation projections, and... well, you know. Here I am."

"And you as well," The Handler smiled at Blair. "It's wonderful to see you again, darling."

Blair couldn't stop herself from smiling and nodding her head in acknowledgment at The Handler. Five may dislike the woman, but that woman had given Blair the whole world. Maybe she was trying to stop Five from stopping the apocalypse, but Blair still owed her everything. They had been quite close before Blair had somehow lost touch with The Commission or whatever had happened that ceased all contact between her and them.

The Handler turned her head back to Five and became serious once more. "You realize your efforts are futile. So why don't you tell me what you really want?"

"I want you to put a stop to it," Five replied.

"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."

Five lifted his gun. "Yeah? Well how about survival as a raison?"

"I'll just be replaced. I'm but a... small cog in a machine," The Handler explained. "This fantasy you've been nurturing about summoning up your family to stop the apocalypse... is just that. A fantasy. 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. And Blair, if you'd like your old job back, we can arrange that."

Blair's eyes went wide with shock.

Five chuckled, "sorry, what's that now?"

"Come back to work for us again. You know it's where you belong."

Five kept his gun steady as the Handler approached him. "Well, it didn't work out too well last time."

"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 profession in... schoolboy shorts. We have the technology to reverse the process. I mean, you... you can't be happy like this," the Handler mused as she reached out to caress Five's face.

"I'm not looking for happy."

"We're all looking for happy. We can make that happen. We can make you... yourself again."

Five sighed. "And what about my family?"

"What about them?"

"I want them to survive."

The Handler inhaled deeply and looked back and forth between Diego, Klaus, and Luther, no doubt wondering why Five wanted them alive. In their frozen state, none of them looked dangerous. In fact, they all looked quite hilarious. Harmless fools stuck in the middle of something that didn't understand. Blair partly wished she could relate.

"All of them?"

"Yes, all of them," Five replied.

"Well," The Handler pulled out her sunglasses and situated them on the bridge of her nose once more, "I'll see what I can do." She held out her hand to Five. "Do we have a deal?"

"One thing."

Five walked towards the ice cream truck to go do whatever he wanted. Blair's eyes were still frozen in shock, her facial expression betraying all of her training that told her to be neutral in situations like the one she was currently in.

"I forgot to ask you, darling," The Handler laughed. "I mean, I assume the answer is yes that you'd like to come back and work for us. We can put you right back on that hill and you can continue living out your life with your team. We can even change your body back to how it looked like back then so that things aren't odd between you and Agent Deleon."

"I-I," Blair stammered, "yes. Hell yeah. I'd love that, thank you. Thank you so much."

The Handler's smile grew larger. Five had returned, and when Blair surveyed the scene for changes, she saw that Five had thrown the gun away from Hazel and Cha-Cha and changed the path of the bullet that had been heading somewhere in between where Blair had sat and where Luther was standing.

Five grabbed a hold of Blair's waist for extra support. The two siblings knew what was coming, after all.

And, when Five reached out to shake The Handler's hand, the country road around them faded away.

Blair had been to the Commission headquarters a total of two times for varying reasons. Now, as Blair walked towards the front entrance for the first time in a little over eleven years, she could once again take in the beauty that was the Commission headquarters.

It truly was a beautiful place. The neatly trimmed bright green grass contrasted well against the dark green forest that secluded the grounds from the rest of society. Dull purple trees were scattered along the grounds in sporadic formations that lined the roundabout driveway. The main building, a beautiful brick building with fancy columns in the front, loomed over the various people walking around underneath the cloudy skies. Everyone oozed the fifties from the way they dressed to the way they talked. It was surreal.

The Handler had known fully well that Blair would agree with her deal. It worried Blair that the woman could predict her decision, but she supposed it was quite obvious how much she longed to go back. As much as she loved her siblings, Stalin era Russia was her home.

That doesn't really sound right, Blair winced.

"I must admit to you two, in all the time I've been here, I've never met anyone quite like the two of you. Hazel and Cha-Cha, for example, are talented, certainly, but... they can't see the big picture. Your spunk, your enterprising spirit, well, it reminds me a great deal of myself, if... I may be so vainglorious. Now, you two aren't genetically related, but was it something Reginald Hargreeves taught you? Was it your upbringing that made you two the wonderful workers you are?"

Five and Blair stayed quiet.

"If things work out here, you could both potentially make fine successors. Two Hargreeves running this place could be quite beneficial."

The trio entered the main brick building and The Handler shrugged off her coat. Some man came up and took it from her while Five and Blair simply watched the interaction take place.

"I'd like to discuss the logistics of my family's safety at your earliest convenience," Five said. He wrapped one arm around Blair's waist and did his best to help her up the stairwell. "As well as this body replacement. For me and for Blair."

"Such chutzpah," The Handler commented. "It's refreshing, I'll admit. Slow down, Five. All in good time. In fact, now that you've finally agreed to work with us, we've got all the time in the world."

Blair's legs were aching as she walked beside Five. Walking with crutches sucked majorly, and Blair could feel her energy being drained with each passing second. She was internally cursing her knee out, begging for it to stop hurting so that the tour The Handler was undoubtedly taking Blair and Five on would be less tiring and painful.

"The Commission works in support of a delicate balance between the timeline of events and mankind's free will," The Handler spoke, her hand barely noticeably pointing towards the briefcase room. "While this will be a part of Blair's kit, it will no longer be a part of yours, Five. Free your mind. You're management now. One of us."

The trio continued walking as Blair gradually relied more and more on Five to help her walk.

"All the people on this floor are case managers, each one responsible for one major event at a time."

"So many of them," Five noticed.

He was right, of course. The trio had moved to stand in a doorway that over-viewed what appeared to be hundreds of desks full of case managers. It was trippy, and it hurt Blair's eyes to look at for too long. Everything was the same, and it looked almost like a paradox you could find on some website about training your mind, or something.

"Impressive, isn't it?" The Handler wondered. "Being part of something... so grand." She paused, staring deep into the depths of the expansive room. Finally, "come along."

Blair and Five trailed behind The Handler as they continued down the hallway. "Whenever someone chooses the wrong path and the timeline is changed, the Commission gets a report from field agents on the ground. These field reports are sorted and assigned to a case manager. They determine if anyone needs to be... removed from the equation to assure that their event happens as it should." They had entered the tube room by that point, which was basically how one would expect a room full of tubes to look like. "Based on that determination, the case manager sends instructions via pneumatic tube to... temporal assassins like the two of you have been or currently are. Any queries so far?"

Blair's mind was on information overload. She had always wanted to learn the inner workings of the Commission and how she got her assignments, and now she was finally seeing behind the curtain. It was quite fascinating how they had designed everything to function seamlessly to ensure the proper events happened in every timeline.

"Yeah," Five answered, "who was the case manager handling me?"

"Ah," The Handler smiled. "You mean the apocalypse. How about we get Blair to a medic before taking you to see Dot, yeah?"

Blair exchanged a glance with Five. She trusted the Commission, but she trusted Five more and didn't necessarily want to be separated from him just yet. It was obvious Five felt the same way, yet he nodded and asked, "can you fix her knee?"

"Yes, but her new body will be ready so soon that it would be a waste to fix it now," The Handler explained. "But I sense you could use a few painkillers in the meantime, huh, Blair?"

Blair nodded weakly. She was close to the point where Five was carrying her whole body up. So long walking had made her grow weaker and more unstable. Painkillers sounded more appealing to her in that moment than coffee, if she was being honest.

"Yeah," she said hoarsely. "That would be nice."

episode five : number five
episode six : the day that wasn't