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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴀɴ ʜᴏɴᴇsᴛ
ᴄᴏɴᴠᴇʀsᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴘᴛ. 𝟷 ꒱


❝ THEY'RE CRANES.
PAPER CRANES ❞

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Five and Dolores picked up Allison— with Klaus in tow— at the beauty parlor where the former worked. While Five's sister (drunkenly) exclaimed how nice it was to see the brunette again, the boy's reasoning was that, like Vanya, Dolores had gone to visit his sister more than once. The car ride was rather chaotic with irritated or intoxicated adults and the teens were at the end of their patience with the loud exclamations coming from the back seat.

Finally, they made it to Elliot's and piled out of the car. The two adults swayed unsteadily on their feet as they entered the building. Looking around, Allison called out: "is anybody here? Hello!"

"Le petit mort, le petit mort," Klaus slurred as he giggled.

"What? You don't speak French," his sister pointed out, laughing along with him.

Rolling their eyes as they exchanged looks of equal exasperation, Five and Dolores made their way to the center of the store as the boy's other siblings appeared at the balcony. Allison and Klaus noticed their family and they paused as everyone was reunited for the first time.

"I know this is impossible," the long-haired man said, "but did we all get sexier?"

✧✧✧

After greetings were exchanged (with Dolores feeling oddly left out), the family made their way upstairs and took up assorted seats. The brunette chose to sit farthest away from the rowdy group. Five stood in front of his siblings and waited for everyone to settle before spoke: "alright. First off, I wanna say I'm sorry. I know I really screwed the pooch on this whole going-back-in-time-and-getting-stuck thing but the real kick in the pants is we brought the end of the world back here with us."

"Oh my god, again?" Klaus complained. He turned to face his brother with a bottle of gin in one hand and a glass in the other. Looking around at everyone's unsurprised faces, he sighed. "All of you knew? Why am I always the last one to find out about the end of the— oh my god, my cult is gonna be so pissed. Five! I told them we had until 2019."

"We have until Monday. We have six days," the boy stated flatly.

"Is it Vanya?" the man asked as he brought his drink to his lips.

"Klaus," Allison scolded him while Vanya looked slightly offended.

"What? It's usually Vanya."

"Do we have any leads, Five?" the woman in question spoke up.

"Yeah, we have one," her brother said. Diego handed him a manila folder which he passed to Allison.

As she opened it, her eyes widened. "Holy shit, is that dad?"

"That's him?" Vanya questioned softly.

"Standing on the grassy knoll," Diego explained.

"Diego, Dolly and I have been trying to talk to dad about what exactly this means. So far, we've gotten nothing."

From her corner, Dolores straightened slightly and opened her mouth. She raised a finger to finally say differently, but the thought of all seven siblings' eyes on her made her quail slightly and she dropped her hand back into her lap. Diego quickly covered the answer: "not nothing. He's planning to kill Kennedy."

"Maybe," Five countered as he slid his hands into his pockets. "But we don't know who or what sets doomsday in motion. Could be Kennedy, could be something entirely independent. But we know something changes the timeline and we have to make it right."

"Yeah, but how, if we don't know what's broken?" Allison pointed out.

"Oh, come on, do the math," her brother snapped. "We know dad's having shady-ass meetings with some shady-ass people. We know he's on the grassy knoll in three days to kill the president, so I think we all know what we have to do."

The man moved to stand behind Five as the pair answered in unison with two completely different opinions: "kill dad" and "find dad," respectively.

"None of us are supposed to be here, right? I mean, what if it's us?" Vanya suggested. "Has anyone done anything to screw up the timeline?"

The siblings grew quiet before Luther spoke first: "Diego's been stalking Lee Harvey Oswald."

"And you're working for Jack Ruby!"

Klaus remained completely relaxed in his armchair as he added, "Allison has been very involved in local politics."

"Okay, you started a cult," his sister returned shortly.

"I'm. . . I'm just a nanny on a farm," Vanya put in. "I don't have anything to do with all that."

"Well, maybe you do, we just don't know it yet," Allison said.

Diego's whistling brought them back together. "Listen to yourselves. Everything in our new lives is connected to Kennedy, that can't be a coincidence. Luther works for Ruby, Allison is protesting the government, dad is on the grassy knoll, I don't really know how Dolores fits in to this— but I'm sure she does— and Klaus is. . . doing something weird and pervy but probably related. See, clearly, we're all sent back here for one special reason: saving John Fitzgerald Kennedy."

As the group devolved into more arguing, Dolores' gaze went glassy as she stared off into the distance, recalling her time spent in the most recent apocalypse. To her surprise, she had a rather hard time remembering it. Not that she'd forgotten about it, of course, but the details were fuzzy and the days bled together in a never-ending string of ash grey and numb emotion. While it was true that she'd— in all sense of the word— shut down in order to cope with her surroundings, she couldn't believe that parts of her time there were missing.

It seemed incredibly detailed in her dreams— nightmares— but in the waking hours she suddenly couldn't recall. . . well, any of it. The brunette frowned at the realization and wondered how she hadn't noticed it before. She supposed it was easier to just not think about it but she hoped at least some memory would come back. After all, she might need whatever instincts she'd learned before all of this was over.

Luther's obnoxious voice drew the girl from her thoughts: "okay, I'm out." The man stood.

"Did you even hear me, Luther?" Five demanded. His brother started to passed him as he headed for the staircase.

"Yeah, yeah, I did." He stopped and looked back at the teen. "I heard a fifty-eight-year-old man who still wants his daddy to come and fix everything. Well, you can count me out. It's time we all grew the hell up." With that, he stormed down the steps.

"Luther!"

"Luther, come back!"

Where are you going?"

Several of his siblings tried to stop him, though he ignored their calls. Diego jumped up from his seat to jog after him. Dolores watched as Five blinked away and appeared in front of the pair. Sighing, she stood and walked over to the railing to watch the interaction.

"No one leaves until we figure this out," Five told his brothers sternly.

Luther stared at him for a moment before he let out a breath. Irritated at being stopped, he reached out to grasp the front of the boy's blazer and tossed him easily off the stairs.

"Five!" the slightly-panicked shout left Dolores' lips as her husband disappeared in a flash of blue. "What the hell, Luther?"

The large man moved to one side of the step and gave her a condescending look. "Why don't you go running after him like you always do?"

The brunette glowered at her brother-in-law, not deigning to spare him a response as she did exactly that. All but galloping down the stairs, Dolores burst noisily through the doors of the TV shop and only paused on the sidewalk to look for where her husband went. Making a split-second decision, she ran to the left and into the ally of Commerce and Knox. "Five? Five! Five!"

There was no answer, of course. The boy was already long gone as he chased after Lila, keeping his promise. Turning around, Dolores hoped for any response the alley noticeably empty. The repeated calls of the boy's name reminded her of the day she landed in 1975, crumbled buildings surrounding the dead end instead of the still-standing ones that were around her now.

She blinked, and her current vision was replaced by tumbled structures and cracked pavement, grey skies and biting wind, the tail end of the nuclear winter chilly against her skin. Dolores spun around again as she took in her surroundings, her breath sharp as knives in her dry throat. She wanted to beg, plead, for someone— anyone— to get her out of here, but the words wouldn't come.

On the street, a car horn sounded nearby, loud and blaring. The brunette startled badly as she returned to the present. Gasping slightly, she blinked away the sting of tears that threatened to spill over. Crying wasn't going to help anything.

Taking one last look around for her absent husband, a wave of sudden fury swept through the girl. While she wasn't certain as to what she was angry at— Five, her own helplessness, her dependency— all she wanted to do was scream. Still, she was in the middle of the city and she'd look crazier than Diego if she just started shouting at nothing. Breathing deeply, Dolores made an effort to quell her emotions— at least until she made it back to the café.

✧✧✧

The moment Dolores returned to her basement bedroom, she let the anger return. This time, she knew exactly who she was furious with— Five. In their time apart, she'd understood that he had had no control over where they landed. She'd understood that it would probably be awhile until she found him. In fact, she didn't blame him for any of it. What she didn't understand is why he'd suddenly up and left her mere hours after being reunited.

Surely he knew how much she'd missed him, that she'd longed every day for his return? Didn't he realize that she wasn't a superhero, that she hadn't been trained for this life, that she didn't know what to do?

Prying the lid off of one of her many collected paint cans, the brunette finally put them to use. Picking up the opened container, she let out a frustrated yell as she swung the can towards the wall to allow the white paint to splash over the numbers and equations that she'd worked so hard on. She opened the next one, and the next one, and the next one, all with different colors as they met the same fate as the first can. Each time, she let out an explosive sound of rage.

Paint droplets splattered everywhere once contact was made with the wall. They littered the floor, the folded papers on the ground, her desk, her blue work uniform— but that didn't stop her. It felt almost cathartic to release her emotions with each splash of color as she allowed the walls to take the brunt of her anger. Soon, muddy brown drips gathered where the wall met the floor as the paint mixed together to become an unidentifiable smudge.

Throwing the last open can down (she still had quite a few closed ones left), Dolores let out an exhausted breath and looked around at the mess she'd made. Instead of cleaning it up, though, she wiped a hand on her forehead. It smeared her skin with pink in the process before she went to the bathroom to wash her hands. Once they were clean, she placed them on either side of the sink and squeezed her eyes shut as she allowed a single broken, gasping sob to escape.

Didn't he know she was only doing this— saving the world— because of him?

✧✧✧

After Five left The Handler and Lila, he made his way back to Elliot's only to find the man himself occupying the rooms, his siblings and wife having dispersed when he hadn't returned. Sighing, he made an educated guess to where Dolores could be and blinked away. He emerged casually from another empty alleyway a few doors down from the café where she worked.

Pushing open the door, he was greeted with the usual diner sounds, though it was quieter than normal as the place was rather empty. He made his way up to the counter and flagged down the older woman who had served him the other day. Mary gave him a displeased look. "You again?"

"Me again," he agreed. He made an effort to be polite. "I'm looking for Dolores Hargreeves. Is she here?"

"Who's asking?" the woman questioned him. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the boy.

"Her— uh—" Five paused. He'd been about to answer husband before he remembered that he still resembled a teenager. "Lover?" It came out as more of a question.

Mary's suspicious gaze remained on him as her lips pursed slightly. "You're Five, then?"

"She told you about me?" His tone was more surprised than he'd intended.

The woman gave him a curt nod. "She's downstairs, in the basement. Mail came for her, by the way." It took a minute for her to find the envelope but when she did, she passed it to the boy. "You know, she has every right to be as mad at you as she looked."

The comment startled him— mad?— and he gave a nod. "Uh, right. I'll be seeing her, then."

Five quickly made his way to the back and, after making several wrong turns, finally opened the right door that had stairs leading downward. Taking a deep breath (Dolores had only ever been mad at him a few times before and none of it had ever been pleasant), he made his way to the bottom and stopped at the last stair to take in the recently re-decorated room.

Looking to his left, he saw the girl curled up on a bed. Her back pressed against the corner of the room as she sat with her feet tucked up against her chest and a book was propped on her legs. He gave the brunette a half-smile at the sight of paint smearing her face but the fact that her eyes stayed trained on her book made his expression falter. Clearing his throat, he tried to break the silence. "Uh, nice interior design?"

Nothing.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, the boy made his way over to the bed. "What're you reading?"

Still no response.

The boy sat on the mattress and tried a third time. "You still have my jacket," he noted lightly.

Finally, Dolores put down her book face-up, allowing him to read the title Watership Down before she slid to the edge to sit next to him. In the heavy silence that rested between them, Five shuffled his feet on the floor. The action caused him to notice the layer of paper that rested underneath his shoes for the first time. Bending over, he scooped some of the folded pieces into his hands and brought them to his lap. Holding up one of the scraps, he studied the shape carefully. He thought that it might be some type of bird. He glanced over at the brunette. "Dolly, what—"

"They're cranes," the girl spoke at last in quiet, detached tone. "Paper cranes."

"But. . . why?"

She shrugged. "A naïve hope on my part. There is a Japanese myth that if someone were to make one thousand of these, their wish would be granted. I've made one thousand fifty-two."

"So. . . you had two wishes?" he guessed. While Five had never been a big believer in the non-factual, he was willing to suspend his skepticism for at least a short period of time.

Silently, Dolores slid her hand into the jacket pocket and withdrew two more folded pieces of paper. Handing them over to the boy, she waited until he'd opened them. "The first two I made," she explained, justifying their clumsy shapes.

Flattening them out, each scrap had a single word on it in his wife's slightly-messy handwriting: the first being his name and the second— one that took him several minutes to process— was apocalypse. He lifted his eyes to meet the girl's. "Apocalypse? But how did you—"

"Do you want to know when I landed?"

"Well I've only asked you that about—"

"Answer the question," she cut across him.

"Yes."

"1975." Dolores' tone had become blunt as she refused to beat around the bush any longer.

"1975? But that's—"

"Twelve years after the 1963. Yes, I know."

She didn't even feel the least bit remorseful as she watched his face fall. Guilt took over his expression. "Oh my god, Dolly," he breathed out in a voice laden with emotion. "I'm—"

"Sorry?" she scoffed. "Yeah, well, it's a little late for that. I was there for six months, Five. I'm only here because Hazel showed up and brought me to 1959." She let out a self-mocking laugh. "I guess he figured I needed four years to recover. It's not like he was wrong."

Five didn't know what to say— he didn't think there was anything he could say to make this better. Instead, he managed what he could: "well, shit."

The brunette gave him a wry smile and her resentment melted slightly. "Tell me about it." Then, her humor vanished. Dolores' shoulders slumped as she sighed. "I'm just so tired, Fives. All the time." Her tone was quiet as she spoke.

For the first time in all the years he'd known her, Five really looked at her. He'd always seen her, of course, and even more so when he'd developed feelings for her. But it was true what they said— love made you blind. To him, she was still the girl he'd fallen in love with decades ago, with all the youthful vigor she'd had even in the midst of the first apocalypse. Even as they'd gotten older, she'd remained young; her spirit had remained young, young enough for him to see past her physical age as she remained the optimistic one and he the pessimist. It was a balance that worked as well as yin and yang.

But now, though, he could see it: Dolores Hargreeves looked old.

There was a wisdom to her eyes that no nineteen-year-old could possibly have, a haunted, careworn look earned by years of struggle that no de-aging process could hide. There was the tiredness there, too, like she'd said and he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard her laugh— really laugh.

"I'm not a superhero," Dolores said quietly, breaking his study. "I belong to the part of the population that's supposed to die in this sort of thing, not the one that fights to survive."

"Dolly—"

She cut him off as she reached over to squeeze his hand gently. "It's not that I want to die or anything," she added, "but I've lived this long due to coincidences and sheer dumb luck. How long do you think that will last?"