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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀʀᴛʏ ᴍᴄғʟʏ ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ʙʟᴀsᴛ ғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀsᴛ ꒱　


❝ YOU EVER HEARD
OF, UH, AREA 51? ❞

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"What do you want?" was the demanded question as a man with dirty blond hair opened the door, a wary expression on his face.

"Hi," Five said, taking advantage of the opportunity. "I'm selling encyclopedias for my youth group. I was curious if—"

The door was slammed abruptly in his face. That was hardly a deterrent, though, and he quickly made the jump into the man's space, startling him. He let out a shriek and scrambled for the nearest drawer, most likely to draw out a weapon of some sort. He pulled out a butter knife and pointed it at the boy. "How'd you do that?"

Unbothered, Five answered, "I don't really have time to explain."

"You from the Pentagon? Huh?" the man demanded, not convinced.

"Definitely not."

"CIA? FBI? KGB?" he fired off.

His questions were ignored as the boy asked, "is that fresh?" in reference to the pot of coffee on the man's stove. He didn't wait for a reply as he blinked over to it, causing the man to shriek in fear again. His hold on the butter knife had only grown tighter. Five took a sip of the drink and turned back to the startled man. "Is this Colombian?"

"It's my own blend."

There was a moment of silence as Five took in the surrounding space, noting the collection of alien-related articles pinned up on the walls. After a moment, he asked, "you ever heard of, uh, Area 51? Roswell?"

At this, the man's arm holding the small blade lowered and he stared at the boy in amazement. "Hot damn! You're one of them?"

That caught Five's attention. "One of who, exactly?"

The man's arms gestured wildly as he explained, "one of the Hargreeves. Apparently there's a whole bunch of you who escaped from the government and you're all trying to find each other—"

The boy froze as sudden, unexpected hope rose in his chest although his expression didn't change as he demanded, "who told you this?"

"Some— some girl. Well, is she a girl if she's a robot? Anyway, she stops by from time to time looking for her family—"

It took all of Five's self-restraint not to pin the man to the wall and demand answers. Instead, he cut him off again, "what girl? What does she look like? When does she come by?"

The man started stammering incoherently at his barrage of questions until he finally found purchase on his words. "I— I don't know her name. I just call her Miss Hargreeves. She's, um, she's blonde—"

"—with blue eyes, about fifteen?" Five finished. The hand holding the handle of the mug was clenched so tightly that a crowbar would've been needed to pry his fingers off.

"Uh, yeah," he answered as the suspicious look returned. "How do you know her?"

For the first time, what could almost be described as an awkward look crossed the boy's face. "I'm, uh, well, we go way back," he decided. "I'm looking for her too. You said she comes by?"

"Yes, yes— hold on—" he muttered to himself as he moved towards a wall filled with yet more pin-ups, this time of fuzzy pictures. Below them, he rifled through papers on his desk. "I've witnessed four similar energy surges in that alleyway out back since she arrived. It's been the same thing every time. A bright blue light and then something appears." He turned and presented a well-worn notebook as he continued: "she asked me to keep track of them, you see. Unfortunately I've never been able to speak to anyone but her."

"Did you get a good look at any of them?" Five asked as he eyed the object the man was holding. Again, he had to withhold himself from snatching it out of the man's grasp.

"Yeah, the first two: that's when the blonde one arrived, second— and then the big, sensitive one."

"Sensitive?"

"Yeah, he cried a lot, kept coming back to the alley calling a woman's name a lot. Uh—" He tried to remember and snapped his fingers when he did. "Allison. That was it."

"Luther."

"Yeah, he. . . he wasn't the only one. Uh, the others came too, off and on over the years, looking for each other. Eventually, they stopped. Well, except for the blonde. She just came by the other day. That's where this comes in," the man explained, waving the notebook. "She writes things in here in some sort of robot language. I don't understand it but— but maybe you will." He handed the book to the boy.

Five took it and set the coffee mug down and flipped it open eagerly. There, on the lines of the page, was a different language but he couldn't help muttering, "robot language, my ass."

A distant memory from when they were children surfaced in his mind— the long, quiet meals at their father's table where talking (vocally, at least) was forbidden. They'd been able to find a loophole around that by learning Morse code which was now in use in the book in front of him. While disappointment welled within him that he'd only missed her by days, he still had the address she'd given him and now this.

He took advantage of the paper lying around and, grabbing one of the writing utensils, sat down to translate the symbols back into English. The first recording was from May 14th, 1960— the day she'd arrived. Then, there was what seemed to be a series of random dates from that day until November 11, 1963.

Each entry varied slightly in content: the things she'd done each day, what she'd used to try and find her siblings and, most helpfully, her next return date. As Five translated each message, he made sure to pay attention to the gaps between each one, noting that they appeared to be anywhere from one day apart to no more than eight, most in non-numerical order.

He couldn't help but let his lips quirk up slightly in a smile at her entries and he murmured, "oh, she's good." But it was really an insult to have thought any less of her; Alexandra had always been one of the more resourceful members of the Academy.

As much as he wanted to read every single one, he knew he didn't have time so he turned to the most recent one for her next planned appearance date. If he didn't have time to go to the address she'd given him, he'd make sure to be there on the twenty-fourth. God, he hoped he would see her sooner than that.

He stood and put the notebook down behind him. "All of this has been very helpful but now listen to me." He moved towards the man who stumbled against the couch in an effort to keep space between them. It didn't matter, though, as Five jumped to right in front of him.

"Elliot. . . my name's Elliot—" the man protested weakly.

"Whatever, alright?" Five snapped. "I got ten days to find them and save the world. Now I need your help to do that."

Elliot's brain took a minute to process this new information as he pointed to himself. "You need. . . my. . . you know what, I, uh—" His hands searched for the handle on the drawer next to him. "I, uh, I always thought that this mugshot looked like arrival number four. I've been holding onto it in case Miss Hargreeves ever asked." He produced that paper excerpt and opened it to reveal exactly who he thought it was.

Five took it from him and peered closely at the image as he breathed out his brother's name: "Diego."

"So, then. . . that was that helpful?"

The boy glanced up at him, finally allowing himself to hope that maybe, just maybe, this might not be such a crapshoot after all. "You have no idea."

☂☂☂

November 24, 1961

According to photo evidence, A arrived three days ago. No reports of return trips to alley yet. Searched Missing Persons section in newspaper for whereabouts, no findings. Will return 11/27/61.

November 15, 1962:

Alexandra made her way up to Elliot's apartments on Thursday. She'd made little headway in her search for her family, even after almost a year and she was getting frustrated. She kept telling herself that she didn't need them, that she was strong enough on her own, but deep down, she knew it was a lie. More than she ever thought she would, she missed them (especially a dark-haired, green-eyed boy.)

While it wasn't the first time she'd gone this long without seeing her family she still didn't know if half of the members were even alive. The first Christmas in Dallas had been especially lonely since she'd made an effort not to get too connected to anyone and offset the timeline. Still, she knew even that was a mostly futile effort since the smallest action could set off an unknown chain of events. That didn't stop her from trying to minimize the impact, though, so she kept to herself and stayed holed up in her small, bare apartment during the holidays while trying to brainstorm new ways to find her family.

This next holiday, though, she hoped to have some success. She'd even had a few close calls with meeting Allison as Elliot's constant reports (that she'd scared him into making) said one time she'd only been half an hour off from seeing her sister. Now, she knocked on the half-glass, half-wood door to the dentist's office.

To her surprise, there was no answer. Alexa sighed and turned— not to go— but to slide down against the wall and lean her head back. She didn't have anything else to do today so she could wait.

The blonde-haired girl jolted at the sudden sound of rustling paper bags and a startled shout of "jesus!" She opened her eyes to see Elliot returning from a grocery run. The man fumbled with his keys as he stumbled over his words: "I'm-I'm sorry, Miss Hargreeves. I wasn't-I wasn't expecting— were— you weren't waiting long, were you?"

He almost dropped one of the bags as he turned the doorknob and Alexa stood to follow him into the apartment. In response to his question, she blinked twice, her face emotionless. It was kind of fun to convince him of her lie, after all.

"Right. . . right," he muttered as he discarded his bags on the counter. "I'll get you updated right away." Alexa waited in the middle of the room while the man bustled around his equipment. She saw him stiffen for a moment and then exclaim, "oh my god."

Forgetting her façade, she scrambled over to him. "What, what?"

He looked at her with wide eyes and obvious excitement in his tone. "The camera has new footage! There's been another anomaly!"

"What?" she breathed. "When? Today? An hour ago?" Suddenly, she raced to the window and jerked the blinds away to peer into the now-rainy darkness hopefully as if the brilliant, blue portal would still be in the sky. It wasn't of course, but that didn't stop her from staring out the window intently for five minutes. She would've done it longer, too, if Elliot hadn't started rambling about getting the pictures developed. 

Alexa turned to him. "Six hours, did you say?" When he nodded, she set her mouth in a firm line. "That means it'll be a late night for you, then." She clapped her hands and the sharp noise caused him to let out a squeak of surprise. "Hop to it. My battery will die in a few hours if I don't get proper charging. You wouldn't want that, now would you?" That got him into action and she hid her smirk, amused at how easily he'd believed her lie. 

A little more than six hours later, the footage was developed and Elliot had one less usable coffee mug. Alexa balled her hands into fists and forced her nails to dig into her palms (despite the fact that she couldn't actually feel the pain) as she struggled not to let tears of frustration escape.

Luther.

She'd only missed him by a few hours, probably when Elliot wasn't home. She turned on the man and forced her voice into deadly calm: "from now on, you will make sure I have access to your apartment at all times. If I miss another family member because you're out, you will pay."

September 8th, 1963

Last sign of L six weeks ago. Last sign of A twelve weeks ago. D arrived, no recurring visits yet. V and F still unknown. Will return 09/10/63.

October 13th, 1963

V arrived yesterday. D returned twice, whereabouts currently unknown. Will return 10/20/63.