An alternate universe that answers the question "what if Lola Gimble died before The Handler came to collect Five in the apocalypse?"




"Only know you love her when you let her go"

Five Hargreeves lands in 2019.

Alone.

✧✧✧

"What's the date? The exact date?" Five demands the answer from his siblings who are arranged haphazardly around the kitchen table.

"The twenty-fourth," Vanya replies.

"Of what?"

"March."

Eight days, he thinks. "Good."

"So, are we gonna talk about what just happened?" Klaus wonders, sitting cross-legged in front of him.

Five barely pays attention to his siblings; they look too similar to the lifeless bodies he'd found in the apocalypse. Eight days. He methodically makes a sandwich though he hasn't been truly hungry since—

"It's been seventeen years," Luther asks as he tries to be the leader.

It's too easy to blink around him. The boy scoffs. "It's been a lot longer than that." Too long.

"Where'd you go?" Diego puts in.

"The future. It's shit by the way." In more ways than one.

"Called it!"

You have no idea.

"I should've listened to the old man. Y'know, jumping through space is one thing, time travel is just toss of the dice." Don't get attached. He looks up and does his best to diffuse the heaviness. "Nice dress."

"Oh. Well, danke."

"How did you get back?"

"In the end I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time." Dolores would scold him for his pretentiousness.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, it would if you were smarter." He could almost hear her rebuking him.

"How long were you there?"

Too long, yet not long enough. "Forty-five years, give or take."

"So, what? Are you saying you're fifty-eight?" Luther's tone is full of disbelief.

"No, my consciousness is fifty-eight. Apparently my body is fifteen again."

"How does that even work?"

"Dolores kept saying the equations were off. I bet she's laughing now," he adds.

"Dolores?"

He could have answered that she was his wife or that they'd been together for fifteen years. He could have said he pictured her somewhere up in the clouds surrounded by stacks of books as she read and re-read them. He could have said that he could hear her cackling at his mistake.

"Guess I missed the funeral," he replies instead.

Dolores would always be his, protected in his memories when he'd failed to do so in life.

✧✧✧

Thinking of Dolores was always a doom loop.

He missed her constantly and relied on memories of her to keep him going. Yet, the thought of the memories made him miss her more. It had been years since he'd last seen her, surrounded by the rubble and dust of the apocalypse. 

He knew the details weren't as sharp as they'd once been. Even as he'd promised that he wouldn't forget her, he knew it was futile. The human mind was not known for its longevity.

He could hardly remember what her voice sounded like, the exact shade of blue her eyes were, the feeling of her hair sliding between his fingers. The tangible existence of Dolores was nearly gone, yet he could still remember the abstract: how she'd loved The Book Thief, how she'd been dead set on writing an autobiography, the way she'd put her hands on her hips as they got into one of their many arguments.

What he wouldn't give to have one now.

✧✧✧

He promised himself he wouldn't.

He didn't want to drag her into this, not when she wasn't his Dolores. Yet after so many terrible, fruitless days, his resolve had weakened.

The evening of the second day finds him outside an oddly yellow townhouse that stands out from the rest of the drab buildings in the neighborhood. He should've known; there had never been anything ordinary about her.

It takes him a minute to gear himself up and then he knocks on the door. He could've just blinked in but that seemed wrong. Dolores deserved more respect than that.

A dark-haired woman opens the door and Five's breath catches at the sight. The memory of Dolores' hair sharpens suddenly. The woman's eyes are a deep brown and suspicious, nothing like the blue eyes he so loved.

"Yes?"

He clears his throat. "I'm-I'm here to see Dolores. I'm a friend from school."

"Dolores doesn't have any friends."

He's never considered what he'd do if they wouldn't let him in.

A man appears behind the woman, his blue eyes curious and intelligent. "Who's at the door, Diana?"

"He's just leaving, Edward. He said he was a friend of Dolores'." She gives him a significant look that Five doesn't understand.

What do they think he's going to do?

As the older man peers around the smaller woman, his eyes fall on the boy in the uniform who was waiting on the doorstep. He puts a gentle hand on his sister-in-law's arm. "It's alright, Diana. Let him in."

"But he said—"

"He's not going to try anything," Edward promises. He turns to their waiting guest. "Come in, son."

Not forty-eight hours ago, he'd bristled at being called a young man by the ignorant doctor. This time, the junior term was not used condescendingly and it made all the difference in the world. 

Five enters the house oblivious to his surroundings. "Where is she?"

"Down in the basement," the man's reply is prompt, which he's grateful for. He isn't sure how much longer he can wait.

He follows the directions and the memory of finding her in this same basement became prominent in his mind as he traipses down the stairs he'd gone down years and years before, in a different time. At the bottom, a brunette girl sits hunched over a writing desk with a variety of candles surrounding her workspace at various heights, exactly as it had been when he'd gone to retrieve what she'd asked for upon their first meeting.

He'd promised himself he wouldn't bring her into this.

He then revised that promise to just see her, then blink out of the room. She'd never know he'd been there.

Her name escapes his lips before he can swallow it back: "Dolores."

The brunette whips around and her blue eyes widen. It's the first time he's seen her face in more years than he cared to count.

Her expression turns confused. "Hello. Do I know you?"

She can tell something about this boy is familiar. Maybe it's the way he's looking at her: full of longing, fondness and an emotion that makes her want to cry— or maybe it's that she knows she's seen that uniform somewhere before.

Whatever it is, it makes her stand slowly with her gaze locked on his. They stand feet apart, facing each other off, waiting for someone to make the first move. He doesn't reply to her question. Instead he revises his promise again: just one hug couldn't hurt, right? 

He launches himself at her and wraps his arms around the girl's shoulders to hold her tightly, almost as if he was afraid she'd slip away. Lola had never been against hugging and even if she didn't know the boy she could tell he needed it, so she hugs him back.

Five could feel his throat closing, the old grief that he never really got to process rising to the surface where it had been buried under anger to save himself from feeling more. He tries to swallow it back but isn't quite successful.

An embarrassing sob escapes.

Even though she doesn't know the boy, she holds him tightly to her.

He's always wanted to blame her for the way he feels. He didn't ask to carry this grief around. He didn't want to get attached in an inhospitable world. When he thought about it, it was all her fault. At least if he'd been alone, he wouldn't have known she died.

Yet, as much as he wanted to blame her, he knew he never could.

✧✧✧

Some time later, they're sitting next to each other on the second-to-last step of the stairs. Lola had offered a box of tissues, her expression concerned but unjudgmental. She doesn't mention his tears and he's grateful for it.

Five prided himself on never being a crier, of not being weak, and this was a humiliating break in habit.

She repeats her question in a softer tone: "how do I know you?"

He doesn't want to answer it. There's no good response. You survived an apocalypse. Who wanted to hear that?

"You're my long-lost sister."

Lola gives him a disbelieving look that is such a mirror of the other version of her that his heart aches. "You're lying."

"I am."

"Why won't you tell the truth?"

"You won't want to hear it."

"Try me."

Her tone has sharpened and become fierce. Five tries one more time. "You're not going to believe me."

"Again, try me."

"There's an apocalypse. You survived."

To her credit (but he wasn't truly surprised) she seemed to believe him. "And that's where we met?"

"Yes." Then he corrects her: "meet."

"And then?"

Five hesitates, unwilling to tell her the truth. He's never spoken the words aloud, after all. Something in his expression must give him away, though, for the brunette seems to realize it on her own. "I die."

"Yes," he expects her to be upset, to deny it, to say that he's lying. She does none of this. Instead, at his questioning look, she shrugs. "Everyone dies."

He realizes he hasn't told her who he was— though he also realizes she hasn't asked. It's weird, introducing himself to her when he knows her so well. "I'm Five."

"Like The Umbrella Academy kid."

What a fool he'd been. "Exactly like him."

He watches as she glances at him, taking in his uniform, his name, his appearance. He can see the gears turning in her head as she solves the riddle. "Everything makes sense now," she announces as she puts the pieces together.

He expected nothing less.

The world is a chaotic, lawless place with no time for foolish promises, so he tosses all of the ones he made to himself out the window. "Do you want to help me save the world?"

✧✧✧

Saving the world is more like going to school than Lola thought it would be.

There's a lot of sitting, waiting and positively boring moments. The van Five had stolen soaked up the sun and warmed considerably, though he didn't seem to mind. Most of the time, they sat in silence or she talked. He doesn't say much but he didn't seem to mind listening. What she did learn from him was exceedingly interesting.

The only action that she sees is a building exploding from the distance and then Five returning, dusty and defeated. He takes her to a liquor store and then to the library where he proceeds to drink and mumble to himself as he scribbles first in a notebook and then the walls.

Lola casts him worried looks and anxiously checks to see what attention they're attracting— thankfully, not much. A part of her is uncomfortable at his drunkenness but she feels obligated to babysit him. He so clearly needs someone that she fears leaving might break him.

Instead, she follows him obediently as he works his way to the balcony of the fourth floor and she can tell his muttering is growing more slurred. The bottle is nearly empty but he doesn't seem to notice. Finally, she speaks: "Five." The boy turns to her, his eyes glassy and slightly unfocused. "You should take a break and rest."

He gives her a longing look. "You sound just like her. She was always telling me to take a break. The world isn't going to save itself."

"Who's going to save you?"

Five scoffs. "I don't need saving." He intends for his tone to be bitter it doesn't come out that way.

Tentatively, she approaches the boy. Lola carefully wrests the bottle from his grasp and sets it down on the ground. Then, she pulls him towards a corner were the glass meets one of the cement pillars. "Rest."

As she helps him sit, he looks up at her. "You're just like her," he repeats. "Yet you're not her."

It had shocked him the first time the differences had made themselves apparent. This Dolores wasn't nearly as argumentative. This Dolores went by Lola. This Dolores was softer, quieter, less sure of herself. This Dolores didn't put her hands on her hips when they disagreed, didn't resort to name calling when she was loosing an argument, didn't hum or sing in periods of silence. This Dolores' eyes didn't light up the same way, didn't look at him as fondly—

didn't love him.

✧✧✧

Five knew that he needed to say goodbye. As much as it would kill him to do so for a second time, she wasn't his Dolores. So, he drops her off on her porch before going to confront Hazel and Cha-Cha about the briefcase. He stands next to her, unable to find the words. (How terribly stereotypical of him.)

"Well. Goodbye, then," she says. The words seem paltry even to her, the wordsmith.

"Promise me something," he says suddenly.

"Alright."

"Don't wait for the apocalypse. We might yet save the world." It's a foolish hope but she deserves a happier ending than what fate has planned for her. "Live."

✧✧✧

April first arrives uneventfully.

For the end of the world, it's a strangely normal day. Lola has done as best she could to follow through with her promise to the boy she'd only spent sixty hours with. Now that the day is here, though, she can't help but wait anxiously for the event. He didn't tell her when during the day it happened so she was antsy during school.

After, she returns home and instead of going straight to the basement, she stays in the kitchen to work on homework. Her parents and uncle arrive home at the end of the work day and start dinner as usual.

She tries to act as though nothing was out of the ordinary but she is almost certain her uncle could tell something was amiss.

The sky darkens outside as they sat down and they finish eating without anything unusual happening.

Lola begins to think that maybe Five was successful.

That night, she chooses to sit with her family as they watch TV in the den. Her father and uncle sit in the two comfy chairs on either side of the couch that she and her mother occupy.

At the commercial break, she stands and looks casually out the window. Her uncle stands as well and refills his glass of whiskey (something he's never done before). The older man returns and sits back down in his chair. He turns to the girl. "Why don't you come sit, Sequins?"

She obliges and sinks into the couch next to her mother in the spot closest to him. As the program resumes, she reaches across the gap between the two seats and to take his free hand.

Outside, the moon splits apart.

Edward grasps his niece's hand in his, his grip strong and reassuring. The fake audience laughs in the background of the show.

The moonrock reaches the Earth's atmosphere, lighting red and gold as it turns to molten flame.

Edmund takes the final sips of his whiskey.

The lights go dark but before anyone can react, waves of fire and heat crash over the house.

Still, Lola is not afraid.

Instead, she welcomes Death like an old friend for He was not unfamiliar to her:










she'd been holding his hand all her life.











A/n: I wrote this because I love angst and I wanted to see what another outcome would be like. This has nothing to do with the main series. It's just a side story that I thought would be "fun" to experiment with and I wanted to share it with you guys! 

(It leans more into The Book Thief vibe that I was aiming for initially. Also, the change to present tense was totally intended and meant to help set this chapter apart from the others.)