Word count: 2225

1963

𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 stood in the alleyway just outside of Elliott's place, turned to face the street as they waited.

Five held a plastic bag tightly in his right hand, picking at the blood that was caked between his skin and nails with the other hand.

The plastic bag that he held was filled about halfway with water that they had stolen from a nearby table at the inn (was it really stealing if no one would even care? Yes?). Swimming around in the 'borrowed' water was the goldfish, whose life they had spared, and who had been unattached from the rest of his human body.

Valerie frowned as her eyes drifted over the boy next to her. Blood was splattered onto him from head to toe, staining both his skin and uniform. He was clearly lost in his thoughts as he chewed on his lower lip and stared at his bloodied fingernails, his grip unconsciously tightening and untightening on the plastic bag every now and then.

His eyes flickered from his nails to her face as he noticed her stare, and he raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"Just . . . ," she mumbled as she took a step closer to him and lifted his chin. She used the sleeve of her blazer and began to gently rub the blood off of his face, not minding as the blue became redder and redder.

Five gazed at her as she did so, wincing slightly every now and then whenever the pressure of her sleeve was too much.

After a few moments, he murmured to her, "Are you okay? After . . . doing all of that?"

Valerie paused for a moment, the edge of her sleeve resting on his cheek as she pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows.

Was she okay? Under normal circumstances, she'd probably be freaking out—she had just broken her long-standing moral code after all, and severely at that. But these weren't normal circumstances, these were desperate circumstances. It was what she had to do.

So in conclusion, she was okay. Ish.

She gave a small shrug and continued wiping as she reassured him, "I'm fine."

His eyebrows furrowed at her response. "But are you—"

"Really, Five." She stopped rubbing and planted a small kiss on his now-clean cheek before firmly telling him, "I'm okay."

He sighed as his grasp tightened on the end of the plastic bag. "But if—"

"Shh." The click of heels filled Valerie's ears, causing her to step backwards. Her eyes moved past Five and towards the woman in pink that was stepping toward them. "She's here."

"Well?" the Handler questioned, an excited expression displayed on her face as she raised her eyebrows and waited expectantly.

Without looking at her, Five thrust the plastic bag back towards her. His jaw clenched as she grabbed the bag and cackled.

"AJ!"

Five shook his head slightly before turning to face her, putting his hands inside the pockets of his shorts.

The Handler lifted the bag up and peered at the fish, cooing at him for a few moments. She then turned to Five, the corners of her lips tugged upwards as she said, "You know, you're really starting to fill out those tight little shorts of yours."

Five didn't respond, instead looking off to the side with a small exhale.

"Why so quiet?" the Handler queried, a small pout on her face as she lifted her eyebrows. "Thought you'd be buzzing after this morning's slaughter."

"All this killing . . ." Five glanced over at Valerie before looking back to the Handler and shaking his head. "I'm done with it."

"What? Am I supposed to take that seriously?" the Handler scoffed, an amused smile coming onto her face. She pulled out a white handkerchief from the inside of her dress and gave it a small lick before wiping off a spot of blood on Five's ear, smiling endearingly down at the boy.

"What we did today, we did for our family," Five insisted, not bothering to give her any thanks for the clean-up. "We did it to save the world."

"Please. Spare me your little assassin with the heart of gold routine, will you?" she drawled as she chucked under his chin with the handkerchief before tapping his nose. "Here." She leaned down and picked up the black briefcase that was sitting beside her. She handed it to Five, who gripped tightly on the handle. "Per our agreement, this will get you and your siblings back to 2019. You have ninety minutes."

Valerie's eyebrows knit together tightly in confusion as the Handler turned to walk away, and she quickly called out, "You said nothing about a time limit."

The Handler stopped in her tracks and turned towards them, a jolly smile on her face. She checked the watch on her left wrist before telling them, "Actually, you have eighty-nine minutes and thirty seconds. Better hurry."

"This is impossible, okay?" Five said incredulously, following her as she made her way to exit. "My siblings are scattered across the city."

"Nothing's impossible," she replied as she stopped once more and tapped the tip of his nose once again. "You two proved that this morning when you killed the board."

"We need more time," Valerie insisted, folding her arms.

"Any more time, and people will start asking questions. The sooner you get home and out of this time period, the better off we'll all be" —the Handler leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper— "so, tick tock, tick tock."

"Goddammit," Five muttered under his breath before grabbing onto Valerie's hand and teleporting them to the entrance of Elliott's home.

Valerie furrowed her eyebrows as they entered, seeing some sort of red substance painted on the otherwise light ground.

"What the hell?"

It didn't take long for her to recognize the shade of red, nor the stench. Blood.

It was scrawled across the ground to spell out: Öga För Öga

She glanced over to Five, who was examining it with a scowl. The two then headed up the stairs, and a feeling of dread washed over her as she noticed the light blue blanket that seemed to be covering a body on the dental chair.

Five rested the briefcase on the ground before gently lifting the blanket off, and both of their eyes immediately widened at the sight.

Valerie inhaled sharply at the sight, horror blooming in her chest.

Elliott, his mouth forced open by some dental tools, had his face smeared with blood, and his glassy eyes were staring up at the ceiling.

Evidently, he was dead.

Five sighed before whispering, "Damn."

Valerie held back any tears that were making their way to her eyes, and Five quickly pulled the blanket back over his head with a small sigh.

She looked ahead to see that Diego and Luther were standing in the kitchen, next to the telephone box. Luther held the black receiver to his ear as Diego stared furiously at the telephone itself, and whatever they were doing, Valerie was sure it was stupid.

Five picked up the briefcase and began to look for a place to hide it as Valerie approached the kitchen, just in time to hear Luther's telephone conversation begin.

"Uh, hello, Olga?"

Valerie shook her head as she rubbed her eyes. She knew it. Dumbasses.

Luther turned to Diego, the receiver still pressed tight to his ear as he whispered to him, "It's her. She sounds old. What should I say?"

"Just . . ." Diego made the motion for Luther to speed it up, to which he cleared his throat and spoke.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Um, I was just wondering . . . What? My name?" A small smirk appeared on his face as he answered, "Is, uh, Luther Hargreeves, and—"

Diego grabbed the receiver from him and shoved it against his ear. His eyes hardened and his eyebrows knit together, he growled, "You killed one of ours, Olga, now we're coming after you. You will be dead by nightfall."

"Hey," Valerie called as Five came to her side, rolling her eyes.

The other two boys looked towards her, slightly startled by the sudden appearance.

"It's Öga För Öga, idiots—Swedish for 'an eye for an eye,'" she informed them with a sigh, shaking her head. "It means the Swedes killed Elliott."

A look of realization dawned on both of their faces as they processed her words, and their eyes widened.

An endearing smile grew onto Diego's face as he readjusted his grip on the receiver and told Olga, "Wrong number. Have a lovely day."

"We would've gotten there," Luther reassured both himself and Diego with a confident nod as the other man put the receiver back onto the hook.

"Eventually."

"Yeah."

Five sighed as he brushed past her, tearing his blazer off and tossing it onto the table. It seemed that he was—no, he most definitely was—pretty angry about the whole ordeal.

Luther stared at him as he took off his sweater vest. It seemed as though the two men had just realized the extra colour that was now accompanying Valerie and Five's skin and uniform. "Uh, you have some blood on you."

"A lot of blood, actually," Diego added as Five grabbed his clothes and stormed towards the bathroom.

Luther watched disapprovingly. "Five, Valerie, what did you do?"

"Silver Streak, what did Five—hey, you're kinda bloody too." Diego furrowed his eyebrows as he turned to her, spotting the blood that was dried onto her hands and sleeves.

"It's not mine, don't worry," she reassured him as she waved a dismissive hand before following Five into the bathroom.

"That doesn't make it better!" Diego called after her.

Five grabbed a small towel and shoved it under the running sink as Valerie closed the door behind her. After it was wet enough, he began to furiously rub the towel against his face, the red transferring onto the fabric as it left his skin.

"Hey, hey, hey!" She snatched the towel from him, shaking her head as he frowned. "You're going to scrape your skin off."

"We have to hurry," Five grumbled as he took his tie off and began to unbutton his shirt.

"Okay, yeah, but . . ." She sighed before carefully gripping his chin and softly wiping the blood off with the towel. "You need to be more careful," she mumbled as she rubbed the side of his face.

Once his face was clean, she put the towel off to the side as he cleaned his shirt up. Soon enough, his clothes were back on, and he ran his hand through his hair to groom it a little.

Valerie opened the door to see Luther buckling his belt right next to it. He looked up at her, giving her a small nod of hello before Five spoke.

"So we found a way home."

His attention now grabbed, Luther's head snapped up to look at Five, and he incredulously questioned, "What? How?"

"All the details are irrelevant, but . . ." Five sighed as he tucked his tie underneath the sweater vest, "We made a deal to get back to our timeline."

"What about doomsday?" Diego questioned as he shrugged an unbuttoned black shirt on.

"Won't happen," Five answered with a shake of the head.

"And the 2019 apocalypse?" Luther asked as he tucked his tight shirt into his jeans.

"Everything will be back to normal," Valerie reassured them as she leaned against the table and nodded. "All right? Now, no more questions. We gotta go."

"We have to find the others, right?" Five nodded as he pulled his blazer on. He then instructed, "Luther, you get Allison. Diego, Klaus. Val and I will get Vanya. Now, we meet back in the arrival alley in seventy-seven minutes. Here." He walked over to the desk in the living room and grabbed three watches. He distributed two of them to the other boys before putting one on himself. "I've synchronized these watches."

"Okay, let's do this." Luther nodded as he carefully put his watch on.

Diego, however, was not as willing to go along with the plan.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on." He stared down at the watch for a moment and inspected it before looking up at Five and Valerie. He shook his head and pointed out, "You show up drenched in blood and expect us to believe everything's gonna go back to normal if we go home now?"

"Elliott just got killed because of us!" Five exclaimed, gesturing back towards the dental chair where the dead man laid.

Diego took a couple of steps towards them, still doubtful as he questioned, "What about Dad? What about J.F.K.?"

Valerie sighed and shook her head, exchanging a look with Five before stepping forward and firmly saying, "Diego, we have a chance to go home and make things right. We are taking it."

He was silent for a moment before he murmured, "I have to say goodbye to Lila."

An incredulous look came over Five's face before he shouted, "Lila doesn't give a shit about you, Diego!"

"Five," Valerie chided with a frown as she placed a hand on his arm.

He shook her hand off before he continued, "She never did. She's one of them. She's a member of the Commission."

"No way," Diego instantly refused as he shook his head. He swallowed as he shut his eyes and continued shaking his head. "Not possible."

"She was just using you to get to me. You're the Oswald of this story, my friend." Five turned around and began to walk away as he called, "The goddamned patsy!"

"You don't know what you're talk—"

Five teleported back in front of Diego and jabbed his finger into his chest. His eyes were hard as they latched onto the other man's and he threatened, "If you don't do this, I'll kill you myself. Got it?"