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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ᴘʀᴏᴍɪsᴇs, ᴘʀᴏᴍɪsᴇs ꒱


❝ IF I HAD A NICKEL FOR
EVERY TIME I'VE DIED. . . ❞

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Dolores woke from the dark, comfortable sleep she'd been enjoying and her eyes opened to a similarly dark room. The lights were off and she could feel the weight of blankets on top of her as she lay in one of the most comfortable beds she'd ever experienced. Her gaze focused on the ceiling of the room as she idly wondered where she was, slowly taking in her new surroundings. She could feel the material of her clothes was different than they'd been all week, the rough fabric of the Academy uniform replaced by a soft cotton that indicated pajamas.

She shifted slightly and winced, the dull throb of pain in her side a reminder of the past few days as her awareness returned. She could also feel her right arm stretched out and the cool brush of air on her hand that told her that it had been moved out from the warmth of the blankets. It wasn't all cold, though; a light weight in her hand proved a familiar feeling as she registered someone was holding it. As she turned her head, a soft gasp of surprise left her lips once she saw exactly who it was.

The sound woke the drowsing boy, who sat up with a start and stared intently down at her as he tried to see into the dark. "You're awake."

"Yeah," the brunette replied softly. "I didn't think you'd be here."

He sighed. "I almost wasn't."

After a heartbeat of silence, she admitted, "I'm glad you are."

Glad that it was dark so she couldn't see his expression, Five awkwardly scratched the back of his neck with his free hand and quickly changed the subject. "How are you feeling?"

"Not bad, all things considered," she answered honestly. "I'll be right as rain— for real— in a few days probably."

"Good. That's good."

Dolores would have to be socially inept to not feel the uncomfortable tension in the air and she knew Five was mad? Disappointed? with her about something— probably her "heroic" act— but didn't know how to broach the subject. Rolling her eyes, she patted the empty space of the bed with her free hand. "Come cuddle."

He stared at her as if she were speaking another language— though if she had been, he would've no doubt understood— and asked, "what?"

She huffed in amusement at his dumbfounded tone and repeated the gesture. "Come on, it won't kill you. Besides, we've got a few hours before daybreak so we might as well rest."

"I don't want—" the boy started agitatedly before he groaned and stood. "You're absolutely ridiculous."

And just like that, the tension broke, leaving them with the comfortable interactions they'd had for years. Cautiously, Five joined her in his bed and the girl moved closer to the edge to give him some more room.

"I swear, if you hurt yourself—" he began, grumbling as he shifted into a more comfortable position.

"I won't," the brunette insisted. She curled against him as one arm tucked under her shoulders and the other looped around her waist.

"We really should be working."

"Nothing's going to happen in the three hours we're trying to rest, Fives," she told him, her tone taking on an irritated edge. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Long moments of quiet stretched out between them, the only sound being their soft breaths in the darkness of the room. Five broke it again, unwilling to let the matter go unanswered that night— or morning. "Dolly?"

"Mmm?"

"Why did you break your promise?"

Dolores turned her gaze up to meet his, but it was hard to see him in the thick blackness of the room. "What promise?"

"The one you made in the apocalypse, about never taking a bullet for me," he explained quietly. The one promise that had brought him so much reassurance over their dangerous years together, the one that guaranteed she would make it out even if he didn't.

"Oh," she said in realization, a small smile forming on her face. "I didn't."

He frowned. "You did. You took that shrapnel so I wouldn't be hurt."

"Yes, I did. But I didn't break the promise. You said a bullet. That wasn't a bullet. You didn't say anything about shrapnel."

He groaned again, closing his eyes briefly as he grumbled, "completely ridiculous," before he addressed her words. "That promise was all-encompassing."

"You should have phrased it that way," the brunette responded primly. "Words are very important."

"You and your technicalities. Fine, new promise. I want you to promise that you'll never sacrifice yourself for me. Whether it be a bullet, shrapnel, many bullets or anything that puts me in danger, I can handle it," he told her firmly. "I don't need you to get hurt because of me."

Dolores mulled over his words for a moment before she said, "I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Why not?" his tone bordered on injured.

"Do you know why I took that shrapnel for you?" she asked quietly.

"Because you love me?" he guessed.

"Well, yes, but there's more." Even though it was too dark to see his expression clearly, she made up for it by cupping her hands around his face as she explained, "you can live in a world without me," she began, feeling his mouth open to protest her words. "Let me finish," she scolded him, "you can live in a world without me because you can bring me back. I cannot live in a world without you because you would be gone forever. Don't make me keep a promise that will cause me to lose you for good."

Five's breath caught in his throat at her words. He'd only ever been concerned about the grief he would bear on his end, never about how she would feel if she lost him. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that he hadn't thought it was so equally reciprocated. He knew Dolores loved him as she often said the words, but he knew how fickle and false they could be. As much as he wanted to protect himself from losing her, he knew he wouldn't want to put her through the same sense of loss that he would feel. (He wasn't even sure if his powers could do something like that but she'd always had more faith in him than he did.)

He wasn't even sure how to respond to her admission so he did what he thought was best. He lifted his arm from around her waist and placed his hand on top of hers to hold it against his cheek as he replied quietly, "I won't."

✧✧✧

Later that morning at a more decent hour, Dolores and Five were startled awake by a loud bell coming from somewhere in the house. As the brunette squeezed her eyes shut in complaint, Five growled slightly under his breath and buried his face against the crook of her shoulder. "If that's Klaus, I'm going to kill him."

She huffed in amusement and wiggled her arm free from where it was pinned against the boy to stretch both of them in an effort to wake up. "No, you're not. That would be illegal."

"So what?"

Before she could answer, the bell mercifully stopped but the door opened in its place to reveal a man with curly dark hair. "Oh good, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you're up. I'm calling a meeting downstairs for some important family business. Chop chop!" he exclaimed brightly. He shot them a dopey grin as he left, leaving the door ajar.

Five lifted his head and gave her a pleading expression, causing the girl to sigh. "Alright, maybe just a little, Butch Cassidy."

He gave her a rather feral smile as he blinked out of existence only to reappear next to her and place a soft kiss on her cheek. Before she could become too flustered, he took her hand and they arrived in the kitchen moments later.

Luther was already there looking extremely groggy and Dolores wondered briefly about the reason before she decided that she didn't care. Klaus handed a mug of coffee to his brother, saying, "here we go. This'll fix you."

Five reached forward and swiped it during the exchange. As he sat down in an unoccupied chair, he took a sip and grimaced. "Jesus. Who do I gotta kill to get a decent cup of coffee?"

"Not the time, Fives," Dolores scolded him gently. "You can do that after we hear what he has to say."

As the boy pulled her down onto his lap, Klaus gave her a wide-eyed look. "You can do it now, if you'd like."

She pursed her lips. "I've suddenly changed my mind."

"Damn it. If I had a nickel for every time I've died, I'd have two nickels if Five followed through. That's not much but it's weird that it happened twice."

Dolores gave him a concerned look at his nonchalant attitude toward dying— though she supposed hers wasn't much better. Luther had had enough of his brother's rambling and huffed, "can we get started please?"

"Anyone seen any of the others? Diego? Allison? No?" When he got no response, Klaus continued: "alright, then. This is the closest thing to a quorum that we're gonna get." He picked up a spatula and banged it against the table, causing Luther to wince at the sudden loud noise before he resumed his speech: "now, listen up. There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just gonna spit it out." 

He paused for— presumably— dramatic effect but lost his train of thought as he mumbled, "yeah." The brunette frowned as the word didn't seem to fit in with the rest of his sentence but no one seemed to notice. At Luther's prompting, he suddenly blurted out: "I conjured dad last night."

No one spoke for several heartbeats as the other two Hargreeves men exchanged looks and Dolores pondered the implications of the statement on her own. Luther was the first to speak, "I thought you said you hadn't been able to conjure anyone in years."

"Ah, yes, but I'm sober. Ta-da!" He held his hands up in the air. "I got clean yesterday to talk to someone special, then ended up having this conversation with dear old daddy himself."

Neither of his brothers paid much attention to the revelation as Luther asked, "has anyone got some aspirin?"

"Top shelf, next to the crackers," Five answered immediately. He winced slightly as Dolores' hand came down on his shoulder. "Hey!"

"Maybe you should listen to what he's trying to say," she reprimanded him.

"Thank you!" Klaus exclaimed, "this is serious, guys, alright? You should be more like Dolores and believe me. This really happened, I swear."

"Okay, fine. I'll play," Five said, giving him a sarcastic smile. "What did the old man have to say?"

"Well, he gave me the usual lecture about my appearance and failures in life, yada-yada-yada, no surprise there. Even the afterlife couldn't soften a hardass like dad, right?" he asked as he waved the spatula around in the air. "But he did mention something about his murder or lack thereof because—" He paused again before he finished with: "—he killed himself." He looked down with fake sadness.

Luther's chair scraped against the floor as he stood. "I don't have time for your games, Klaus."

"I'm telling you the truth, Luther. I'm telling you the truth."

"Why'd he do it, then?" Five questioned him with narrowed eyes.

"He said it was the only way to get us all home again."

"No. Dad wouldn't just kill himself."

"You said it yourself, he was depressed," the boy reasoned. "Holed up in his office and room all day and night."

"No, there weren't any signs," Luther argued. "Suicidal people exhibit certain tendencies, strange behaviors."

"Like sending someone to the moon for no reason?" Klaus asked with a raised eyebrow.

His brother gave him an angry look. "I swear to God, Klaus, if you're lying. . ."

"I'm not! I'm not!" he insisted.

"Master Klaus is correct," a new voice spoke from the doorway, causing everyone to turn and look at Pogo. "Regretfully, I helped Master Hargreeves enact his plan."

"What?"

"So did Grace. It was a difficult choice for both of us. More difficult than you could ever know." He looked down, only his expression was of genuine sorrow. "Prior to your father's death, Grace's programming was adjusted so that she was incapable of administering first aid on that fateful night."

"Sick bastard," Five mumbled. Dolores was inclined to agree.

"So the security tape we saw?" Luther asked.

"It was meant to further the murder mystery," he confirmed. "Your father hoped that being back here, solving it together, would reignite your desire to be a team again."

"And to what end?"

"To save the world, of course."

Klaus chuckled with disbelief. "Alright."

Luther wasn't convinced. "First the moon mission, now this. You watched me search for answers and said nothing." He turned his indignant expression on the chimp. "Anything else you want to share, Pogo? Any other damn secrets?"

"Hey, calm down, Luther," the boy tried to ease the tension.

"No, I won't calm down! We've been lied to by the one person in this family we all trusted!"

"It was your father's dying wish, Master Luther. I-I had no choice."

"There's always a choice," Luther told him hollowly before he left the room.

Five pushed his hands through his bangs as his mind whirled to catch up with the new information. He dropped them to gently nudge the brunette off of his lap. "I've gotta think," he said by way of explanation before he disappeared in a flash of blue.

That left Klaus and Dolores (and Ben) in the kitchen, the former looking at her with an unreadable expression. "You wanna hang out?"

The brunette gave him a bemused look before she shrugged. "Sure."

As he fell into step beside her, he asked, "so just asking for a friend, but why were you inclined to believe me?"

"Why would you lie about something like that?"

"Well, the popular opinion to that question would be for attention but y'know, I don't really prefer the spotlight. It tends to blind my eyes and make little black dots appear."

"Still," Dolores replied, sensing the Klaus was lying, "I've learned to expect the impossible with your family so it's not so hard to believe your father would kill himself as a misguided way to bring everyone back together."

"Well, when you think about it like that. . ." the man trailed off with a scoff. She shot him a wry smile as he— predictably—changed the subject. "Hey, so I've been meaning to ask— what's the old man really like?"

She gave him a confused look as they started up the stairs. "What d'you mean?"

"Well, it's just that he's, y'know, a bastard when he's with us and I'd think that a smart, pretty girl like you would have more sense than to tie yourself to someone who's got a stick up their ass."

"It's not like I had much of a choice," the brunette reminded him. "He was the only person I had in the apocalypse so it was kind of inevitable. I'll tell you something, though," she continued, earning an indulgent look from him, "he wasn't always nice around me."

"He wasn't?"

"We basically didn't get along at all in the beginning. He was kind of a jerk, actually, but we worked it out in the end."

"Huh," the man said. "I never would've pegged him for an Oreo."

"An Oreo?" Dolores asked, confused. "Don't you mean an onion? Y'know, for layers?"

"An Oreo," he repeated, "hard on the outside, soft on the inside." He chuckled slightly as if her question were absurd. "An onion."

"Oh," was all she had to say in response.

"Anyway," Klaus said airily, "now that that's answered, next interview question. What's the deal with there being two of you? It must make the old man's dreams come true, huh?"

Dolores gave him a rather disgusted look and grimaced. "Definitely not. Our minds are connected seeing as how we're the same person so I get my other self's memories, yet we're two distinct people, seeing as how she hasn't had to survive an apocalypse."

At the mention of memories, he looked surprisingly awkward. "So. . . asking for a friend— a different one than last time, of course. I've got quiet a few— er, how much do you see with those memories?"

"I know that I went to Vietnam with you," the brunette answered bluntly. "I haven't unpacked everything yet but I'm sure that will be a fun experience. But I guess the main answer is that I'll know what happened between the time you and her were captured to meeting her in your room."

"Er, well, sorry," Klaus said, his tone uncharacteristically sincere. "I didn't mean to put you through all that shit."

Dolores waved a hand in the air, brushing it aside. "I survived, that's the important part. It's just another one to add to the list. Apocalypse, Vietnam War, I'm sure there'll be more. I have a question," she said suddenly, "what happened to. . . well, me?"

"Oh, Diego and I took you home."

She turned to him, surprised. "You met my parents?" Of all the Hargreeves, she would've never guessed those two.

"No, thankfully. We didn't have to have that wonderful discussion. We just dropped you off and you let yourself in. Hey— shouldn't you know that?"

She shook her head as they approached his room. "I'm trying to keep her in the back of my mind so I'm not as affected. It's not helping much with the headache but I am more focused."

Klaus nodded as if he understood and opened the door, allowing them to enter. He gestured around the space. "Make yourself at home, little lady."

✧✧✧

"Oh, good, you're here," Five's voice sounded from the doorway, causing the pair to look up at him as he directed his next words to Klaus. "Hey, get up. We're going."

"Where?" the dark-haired man asked as he fiddled with the yarn and needles laying on his chest.

"To save the world," the boy said and Dolores was pleased to see a renewed, determined look in his eyes.

"Oh, is that all? Great," Klaus sighed, slumping.

The brunette pushed herself to her feet and made her way to where her husband was standing. "Alright, ready to go."

The boy gave her a grateful look, relieved with her lack of questions and ardent trust in him. Klaus, however, was another story, so he reached out gently and took her arm, spinning her back around before she had a chance to leave the room. He could feel her curious gaze on him as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and started pacing. "So, Pogo said dad killed himself to get us all back together, right?"

"Yeah, so?" the man asked as he slowly sat up.

"So, it got me thinking. I had to jump to the future to figure out when it happened but dad, he can't time travel, so how'd the crazy bastard actually know how to kill himself a week before the end of the world?"

"Well, you know—" Klaus started as he pulled on his socks.

"Don't answer, that was purely rhetorical," Five interrupted him. "Truth is, our whole live he's been telling us we'd save the world from an impending apocalypse."

"Yeah, but I always thought he just said that to scare us into doing the dishes," his brother countered as he put on his shoes.

"Me too," Five agreed emphatically, "but—"

"Do you think he already knew what was going to happen?" Dolores asked, connecting the dots on his idea.

"Exactly," the boy said with a nod, giving her an appreciative look.

Klaus straightened. "Yeah, but how?"

"No idea," he admitted. "But the fact remains, his farkakteh plan worked. We all came home. Since we're here, we might as well save the world."

"Oh yeah?" the man asked, tugging on a shirt that had been lying nearby. "What, like the three of us?"

"Well, ideally not you, but I've gotta work with what I've got," he said, ducking the swat Dolores aimed his way.

Klaus finished dressing and the three of them made their way down the hall. Soon they came upon Diego who seemed to be returning from somewhere in a hurry, his footsteps loud and impatient as he quickly covered the space to his room. They came to a stop to watch him and Five asked, "where have you been?"

"Jail," was his brother's short response. He rushed into his room to grab something— probably knives— as he called out: "long story. Where's Luther?"

"Haven't seen him since breakfast."

"Yeah," Klaus agreed. "Two days until the world ends. He picks a great time to drop off the grid."

Diego returned, fully armed with the knives Dolores had suspected he was getting and gritted his teeth. "Shit."

She blinked. "I thought you two didn't get along."

"It's a special occasion," he said curtly, looking extremely serious. "Allison is in danger."

A/n: I couldn't resist including the Phineas and Ferb reference :)