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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ɢᴏᴇs
ᴅᴏᴡɴʜɪʟʟ ғʀᴏᴍ ʜᴇʀᴇ ꒱


❝ THAT DOESN'T LOOK
LIKE SUCCESS TO ME ❞

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The car ride was silent as Five and Dolores drove to the farm where Vanya was staying. Both teens were lost in their own thoughts; the girl stared blankly out the window while the boy's gaze remained focused on the road. It was, however, the most comfortable silence the two had shared since being reunited despite the fact that the brunette counted every faint tick of the synchronized watch. Even with their current contemplating separation, they remained connected by their clasped hands that sat on the middle console and the boy's thumb rubbed absentmindedly on the back of the girl's hand.

They were pulled back into the present as another car drove past them. Both teens turned to look at the driver (that turned out to be Vanya) who stared in back at them in surprise. The cars slowed to a stop and all three of them met in the middle of the road.

"What are you guys doing here?" Vanya asked.

"Looking for you," Five answered. "We're going back to 2019."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, we don't really have time to explain right now but we found a way home." The boy pulled out the timepiece to double-check the remaining amount. "Alright? We have thirty minutes to leave." He began to lead Dolores back to the car.

"What about my friends?" his sister demanded. "I can't just leave them here."

The pair turned back to her as Dolores spoke: "we have to get home, Vanya. We don't have much of a choice."

"Doomsday will happen if you don't come with us," Five reminded her.

"Okay, then I'm bringing them with me," the woman stated defiantly.

"They belong in this timeline," her brother insisted.

"Says who?" the brunette snapped. "Sissy deserves a life where she doesn't have to pretend to be someone she's not. And Harlan? There's a name for what he has. We can give him the help that he needs."

Dolores understood all too well the affect of being someone you're not had on a person but it didn't change the fact that they weren't supposed to be there. "Vanya—" she started.

"Look, a mom and her eight-year-old son are not gonna screw up the timeline!" the woman cut her off as her voice rose to a shout. "They're insignificant."

"No one is insignificant," Five retorted as he stepped up to his sister. "I'm sorry, alright? We can't take that risk."

"They have to stay," the girl added as if her husband's point wasn't clear enough.

The couple began to retrace their steps back to the car only to be stopped as Vanya continued to argue: "why do you get to decide? You're the reason we're stuck here in the first place."

Dolores spun around to face the woman and pointed her finger threateningly in her direction. "Hey. If it weren't for him we'd all be dead and you'd never have even gotten to meet Sissy. Lay off, okay?" Her tone bordered on polite with only a hint of a sharp edge, but the steeliness in her eyes showed that she meant business.

The woman paused before she replied, "they're coming with me."

The boy scoffed as his eyes narrowed with irritation. "Vanya, do not test me right now," he snarled as he stalked towards her.

"That's funny," Vanya said, though there was nothing in her expression to indicate that she thought so as she moved closer to her brother. "'Cause I was about to say the same thing."

The brunette's irises began to turn white and her skin paled as she started up her White Violin power. A white orb grew in the center of her chest, shimmering with light. Not to be outdone, Five's hands clenched into fists as blue energy swirled around them. Neither showed signs of backing down as they stared menacingly at each other.

Dolores watched the pair have a metaphorical measuring contest before her patience ran thin and she walked up to them. She placed her hands on her hips as she gave the pair an unimpressed look. "We're wasting time. If you two don't get your sideshow acts together we'll never make it in thirty minutes. Vanya, Sissy and Harlan have to stay here. We don't know what kind of irreparable damage would be caused if we brought them with us. And Five, I love you, but—"

"Fine," Vanya interrupted her again, but thankfully began to power down.

"'Fine' what?" Five demanded as he followed suit.

"I'll be there but I need to say goodbye first."

"Oh, Vanya—" the boy started, only to stop when the girl laid a hand on his arm.

"Let her go," she told him before she addressed the woman: "be at the alley in thirty— well, less than thirty— minutes. Don't be late."

The brunette gave a curt nod before the trio split up. Both parties returned to their cars. "You're being a total idiot," Dolores said bluntly, finishing her previous statement as he started up the car again. "Vanya can end the world, Five. Fighting wouldn't have been the way to get her to agree."

The boy gave her a look. "You don't think I could take her?"

"No," the girl answered frankly, "and you'd regret it eventually if you did. With siblings as stubborn as yours, do you really think combat is the best way to get them to agree?"

"What do you suggest?" Five countered sarcastically. "Democracy?"

"Compromise," was Dolores' simple answer before the pair fell into a disgruntled silence.

✧✧✧

The couple arrived in the alley a short while later and the boy took the opportunity to reclaim the briefcase which he'd hidden in the dumpster. Dolores leaned against the opposite wall as her tolerance began to wear thin. Luther arrived moments after they did. "Where is everyone?"

The boy scoffed. "You're the first one."

From the alley opening, Klaus came into view. "Hey, hey, hey! We made it!" He chuckled before he groaned and bent over.

"What do you mean 'we?'" Five repeated. The trio watched the man in confusion as he continued to shudder and his question went unanswered.

"Get out!" Klaus shouted to no one before he projectile vomited all over the pavement. He then dropped to the ground while he made noises of discomfort.

"Gross," Dolores observed as she moved away from the puddle just in case. "At least you did that outside."

"I can't believe it," Luther exclaimed. "I mean, you're here!"

Five looked at the watch. "We've got eight minutes left."

"I just had the strangest dream," Klaus whimpered, lying face-down on the ground.

"We have a minute left!" Luther said after he looked at his own watch a few minutes later. He angrily slammed his fist on the lid of the dumpster.

"What's going on, guys?" their brother asked. "Are we going somewhere?"

"It was a simple task. It was a simple task," Five hissed as he continued to pace. "All we have to do was be here! Did we have to fight a giant sea monster? No. An army of mutants? Nien!"

"I can't believe this," Luther murmured. He walked to the front of the alley and looked both ways to make sure that no one else was coming.

"It was literally handed to us on a silver platter," the boy snarled.

"Could you just moan a little softer?" Klaus pleaded as he covered his ears with his hands. "My head is killing me."

Five spun around and stalked over to his brother. "Listen to me, you useless puke bag," he snapped. "We just blew our chance to save the world!" Klaus continued to groan as he tried to block out the boy's yelling.

The briefcase began to make a high-pitched sound and a clicking noise, causing the teen to look down and scoff at it. "Goddammit."

"Shit," Luther exclaimed as he caught on to the meaning of the noise. The boy grabbed the handle and flung it into the air just in time for it to disappear in a flash of blue. They all looked up at the point where it vanished. 

"We were that close," Five sighed. "That close."

"Now what?"

"Now nothing, Luther, alright? Make your peace with God!" the boy shouted as he continued to pace, though his strides had become far more agitated. He was clearly pissed.

"What about Allison and Vanya?"

The teen marched over to the alley's wall and leaned against it momentarily before he pushed off with frustration. "Screw them both. They should have been here." His eyes caught a discarded cardboard box.

"What about Diego?" Klaus spoke up from the floor. "He's quite a responsible young man, no?"

Five kicked at the abandoned box angrily. "Screw Diego, okay? Screw everybody! I was better off on my own in the apocalypse!"

"I?" Dolores finally spoke up in a tone that matched her husband's fury. She had been watching the three Hargreeves fall apart silently until now. "I? Where the hell do you think I was? Off gallivanting into the sunset?"

Her words cut through the boy's anger and, for a moment, his expression showed his guilt as he realized what he'd said. Before he could remedy the situation, though, Luther tried to make things better. "Five! Come on."

The boy turned his gaze towards his brother and his rage returned. "You know what, Luther? It's every sibling for himself," he exclaimed, before he stormed away towards Elliot's building. "How 'bout that?" he slammed the door shut behind him.

The brunette scowled in her husband's direction, not at all pleased with his attitude. She pushed off the wall and began to follow his footsteps as Klaus groaned, "did Five just get meaner?"

"Where are you going?" Luther asked the brunette.

She turned and gave him an irritated look. "I'm going to talk to Five, Number One."

He ignored her tone. "Maybe it's better that you don't do that? It seems like you guys aren't on the same page right now."

"Oh, wow, the monkey can make an observation!" the girl exclaimed sarcastically. "Well, don't you just know everything? If you think you can do better than me then by all means." She gave him a mocking, sweeping bow as she gestured towards the door.

The man gave her a look of great dislike before he followed her suggestion and took off to catch up with the boy. Dolores let him get some distance on her before she entered the building herself, knowing that Luther would likely get nowhere with him. As she climbed the stairs, she could hear the man's voice calling loudly from the apartment: "Five! Come to what? Five!"

The girl soon joined him in front of the door and gave the man a sweet smile. "That doesn't look like success to me."

Luther glared at her. "What, you think you can do better than his own brother?"

Dolores knocked on the wood. "Five, it's me. Open up." She wasn't surprised when there was no response. Placing her hands on her hips, she raised her voice to the same tone she'd used minutes ago: "Five, I swear to god that if you don't open this door right now, I will divorce—"

The door opened before she even finished her sentence and the boy quickly yanked her inside. He slammed it shut as he glowered at her. "Don't even use that as a threat," he snapped.

The boy had taken his feeling out on his clothing by tossing his blazer across the room with so much force that when it had caught on the lamp. The extra weight unbalanced the light and caused it to fall to the ground. He was in the middle of loosening his tie as he resumed pacing at a furious speed. "They're complete idiots! They couldn't even do one thing that I asked them to. Now we're stuck and probably going to die again—"

He continued to rant and mumble to himself as he covered the floor with his steps. Dolores watched with an unimpressed look on her face. She let him continue for a few more moments before she finally cut him off in a loud voice: "are you quite finished?" Five spun around with an irritated expression on his face. He remained silent, though, and let her speak. "Look," she began in a surprisingly even voice. "I get it. This is a shitty situation and things have only gotten worse but we're never going to get out of it if we lose our heads. We just need another plan—"

"Oh yeah?" the boy scoffed. "And what's that going to be?"

"Do you know what tomorrow's date is?" At his blank expression, Dolores answered for him, "November 22nd, 1963. And do you know what happens tomorrow?"

"Kennedy's assassination," Five answered slowly.

"Right," the brunette agreed. "And guess who's given a mission to assassinate him."

Understanding dawned on his expression. "The Commission briefcase."

She gave him a bright smile that looked out of place from her anger minutes ago. "Ding, ding, ding!"

"But how did you—"

"Remember?" she finished, giving the boy a shrug. "It was plan C. If I couldn't get your siblings or if you didn't show up, I'd find our alternate selves and somehow get the briefcase."

"How many plans did you have?" Five asked as his expression softened with awe.

"Let's see." She began to tick them off on her fingers. "A, B, C, D, E— all the way through Z." (That was a slight exaggeration but he didn't need to know that.) "The important part is that all hope isn't lost yet."

Suddenly, he sighed and sat down on the bed. "God, Dolly, I'm sorry. All this-all this shit I put you through. I didn't have any right to lash out at you like that."

"No, you didn't," the girl agreed as she sat next to him, "but that's what I'm here for, to snap you out of it." A small smile quirked on her lips. "I'll accept your apology if you take back what you said about the apocalypse."

The boy winced. "I really said that, didn't I?"

"Yup."

"You know I take it back," he said, and opened his mouth to continue. But the words he needed had never come easily to him, though he wanted to say I couldn't have done it without you. He closed his mouth as he failed to speak.

Words never failed Dolores, though, and she reached over to gently take his hand. "I couldn't have done it without you either, you know."

✧✧✧

The next morning, Dolores woke up with her husband's arms wrapped around her with yesterday's high-strung feelings well. . . spent. Rolling over, the brunette couldn't help but admire how peaceful he looked. Ever since they'd arrived in 2019, it had been go-go-go and they hadn't had much down time (not that they'd ever really had it in the first place.) Seeing the restful expression on his face made her think that maybe everything would be okay.

Five must have felt her wake (he'd always been a light sleeper) and his eyes opened moments later. A faint smile appeared on his face when he met her gaze. "Morning."

"Morning," the girl replied, mirroring his expression. "You seem to be in a better mood."

He leaned forward to press a brief kiss to her lips before he pulled away. "I have you to thank for that."

She grinned at him. "Happy to help."

The boy huffed, though he still looked amused. "I was trying to have a nice moment and you just had to go and ruin it."

"Hey, I never implied anything," the brunette pointed out cheerfully. "You came to that conclusion yourself."

"Uh-huh," he replied, entirely unconvinced. "Are you ready for today?"

Dolores sighed, wishing that they could've put off apocalypse-talk for a few more hours— or days— but knew it was inevitable for the real world to come crashing back. "Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, you'll be going through Paradox Psychosis again and no one knows the effects of doing so twice," Five pointed out.

"I suppose you're right," she said, "but you're going through it for the first time and we both know your emotions tend towards. . . well, homicidal rage. Are you ready?"

"It's something we have to do," the boy gave a non-answer which made his wife narrow her eyes with annoyance.

"Five."

"As ready as I'll ever be," he amended dutifully. He turned to look at the clock on the bedside table. "Come on, we better get dressed."

✧✧✧

The couple entered the kitchen not long after and the boy rooted through the refrigerator in search of water. Successfully finding a large container of it, he handed it first to Dolores who drank a decent amount before she returned it to him. As the boy began to chug the rest, Luther entered the room. "Five? Dolores? Guys, what. . .?" He turned to the brunette. "Is he okay?"

"Yeah. . ." Dolores answered in the same non-committal tone her husband had used minutes earlier.

Five finally finished and he set down the now-empty water holder with a gasp. "I'm gonna need to be hydrated."

"Hydrated?" Luther repeated.

The boy ignored him and turned instead to the girl. "Baby powder?"

Dolores searched the nearby cabinets before she located it. She poured it down the would-be itchy places to prepare for later, wishing she'd done so back in 2019. She handed the container to the boy who did his own rendition of her actions.

Luther watched them curiously. "What's with the baby powder?"

"It'll help with the itching," Five explained.

"What itching? There's itching? What the hell is going on here?" The man paused as Five poured baby powder down his pants and his eyes widened as he realized, "you do have a plan."

The boy jumped in place to make sure the powder was settled before he looked over in his brother's direction. "Well, it's a desperation move but since our brain-dead siblings are incapable are meeting a simple deadline, I got no choice."

Dolores followed him into the den as Luther turned in the doorway to watch them. "No choice about what?"

"We have to find ourselves," the brunette explained as the boy pulled out the watch from his pants pocket. She looked over his shoulder to check the time with him. "We just arrived in Dallas fifteen minutes ago."

"Should I be worried about you guys?"

"Luther, if you recall, I was sent to 1963—" Five leaned down and began to stretch, reaching one hand over to his opposite foot and then repeating it with the other. "—on a job by The Commission to make sure the president was assassinated. Against The Commission's better judgement, I brought Dolores with me."

"I got vacation," the brunette added with an exuberant amount of happiness as she paced behind her husband.

"Oh! So Five's old self is out there," the boy's brother began to understand the plan.

"Precisely," Five confirmed as he straightened.

"Correction!" Dolores chimed in. She held up a finger. "Our old selves are out there."

Luther glanced at her before he continued: "what, just walking around Dallas?"

"Walking around Dallas with a briefcase that can get us home," the girl explained brightly.

"Oh my god, you guys are geniuses!" the man exclaimed.

"Yes we are," the girl acknowledged proudly, earning an eyeroll from the boy.

"You're being ridiculous," he informed her before he answered his brother, "however, there are two significant problems with this plan. Problem number one: I am a trained assassin, arguably the most dangerous assassin in the space-time continuum. If I know me, I'm not going to react kindly to bumping into myself."

"While I'll probably just get to have a nice chat," Dolores interrupted him conversationally.

"Problem number two," Five continued as if she hadn't said anything, "and this is the real fly in the ointment here: you're not supposed to exit in close proximity to yourself in the same timeline. The side effects can be disastrous."

"Side effects? What sort of side effects?" Luther asked.

"Well, according to Commission Handbook Chapter Twenty-Seven, subsection 3b, the seven stages of Paradox Psychosis are—" Dolores started.

"Stage one: denial," Five said. He held up a finger.

"Stage two," the brunette followed, holding up two. "Itching." They continued to take turns as they listed off each of the symptoms:

"Stage three: extreme thirst and urination."

"Stage four: excessive gas."

"Stage five: acute paranoia."

"Stage six: uncontrolled perspiration."

"And stage seven," the boy finished. He dropped his hands and clasped them together with a guilty expression on his face. "Homicidal rage."

Dolores frowned. "Hey, no fair. I wanted to do the last one. Can we start over? You'll get to go first," she offered, in hopes that he'd agree.

"Homicidal rage?" Luther repeated, ignoring her.

"Yeah," the boy confirmed.

"That's why this is going to be so much fun," the brunette told them cheerfully. "We're for sure going to get to that last one."

Her husband sent her an irritated glare (which he felt immediately bad about) as his brother looked unconvinced. "Jeez, I don't know. Maybe this isn't such a good idea."

"It's a Hail Mary," Five exclaimed. He threw his arms wide as he resumed pacing. "But what choice do we have, Luther?"

"I don't know, you two already seem a bit squirrelly there," Luther observed. "You especially, Dolores."

The brunette gave him a look of great dislike, irritated that he could stomp on her good mood so easily. Five walked over to his brother and grabbed his arms. "Look, Luther, I'm gonna need your help on this, alright? I need you to be my spotter."

"Spotter? What is that, like a wingman?"

"In case the Paradox Psychosis gets to severe we need you to help us stay on task, alright? So, whatever happens, whatever we say, we need to get that briefcase," the boy instructed him.

"Yeah, okay," his brother agreed hesitantly.

"Okay," Five repeated before he rushed off towards the stairs. He grabbed his wife's hand along the way to pull her with him.