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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚ ▎❛ 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐕𝐄 ❜ ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴀᴄᴄᴇᴘᴛᴀɴᴄᴇ ꒱
❝ WHY DON'T YOU
USE MY NAME, FIVE? ❞
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"We've gotta get you home," Lola said, breaking the silence.
"What?"
"You heard me."
It was a few hours after their initial meeting and both had sat in silence for some time as they thought about their own problems. Lola had come to the conclusion that out of the two of them, Five had the best chance of stopping this thing.
"I don't get your sudden change of heart," Five admitted, "unless you're going to try and sabotage my math?"
The girl snorted, "you've said before I'm not smart enough to understand so there's no way I could. I've just been thinking that if you do stop the apocalypse you're inadvertently saving a version of me, changing the timeline and thus erasing me-me from existence."
"You'd do that to yourself?"
She shrugged, "I won't remember it. Besides, it's better than living here the rest of my life."
"How're you going to help me if you can't do the math?"
"I could keep you from becoming insane," she suggested, "and I'm good at recognizing patterns in numbers so I could check your math for you—"
"—that's not exactly how checking my math works," the boy mocked her, "you've got to redo the problem—"
"—and make sure you've carried your negatives and added properly, I know, thanks. Just 'cause I can't solve time travel equations doesn't mean I can't do basic algebra. Just let me help, Five. It'll get you home faster and you can completely ignore my suggestions if you don't agree with them but I need to keep myself occupied."
"You do know that this means you're going to have to stick around, right? And put with my apparent 'assholery' as you've put it."
The brunette sighed, "yeah, I know, but the faster we get you home the sooner the impending doom for my past self will be gone so I can put up with you for a bit longer I suppose."
"A bit longer? How long have we been here?"
"Three and a half months," the girl answered promptly, "approximately one hundred-six and a half days."
"You weren't joking about the counting thing," the boy said, almost bemused.
"Nope."
✧✧✧
[One month later]
"What's the first thing you're gonna do when you get back?" Lola asked as they settled down for the night.
"Stop the apocalypse, idiot."
She rolled her eyes. "After that, I meant. You'll have all the time in the world. I would certainly take a shower first, brush my teeth. And sleep— definitely sleep." She didn't mention her real desire: find her parents and make sure they were really okay. That touchy-feely stuff would shut him down immediately.
"What's the point of wishing for things you can't have?"
She gave a heavy sigh, "you're such a pessimist. Surely you want to do something?"
"I'm more worried about getting back. I can think about that after once we've stopped this."
The brunette froze at his use of we. Sure, they'd made more of an effort to get along in the past few weeks to solve this time-travel business but she hadn't expected a plural from him yet.
"I think you mean you, idiot," she corrected him.
"Right, of course. I was merely giving you credit for the math."
"I haven't done anything."
"Yeah you have. Remember that decimal I got wrong?"
"Only because that damn book is so tiny. You need a better place to spread out," she quickly returned.
"We keep moving, there's not a better place to write. It's not like I can go buy paper."
They lapsed into their familiar, strangely comfortable silence. Lola stared up at the dark expanse of nothingness that was faintly illuminated by the remainders of their fire. She hadn't had a good, solid sleep in weeks— not with the occasional hunger pangs, persistent thirst or the creeping dark that still haunted her and stole what little sleep she caught. She suspected the same went for Five just different reasons.
Always one to speak first, the girl asked her next question: "why don't you use my name, Five?"
"What?"
"You never address me by anything, it's usually just 'idiot' or something like that."
"It's 'cause that's what you are," he answered easily.
Having grown used to his behavior, she only rolled her eyes. "But I call you Five. You've never called me Lola."
"It's a dumb name."
"It's not!"
"You're more of a Dolores if anything. But I've found that calling people by their names means you get attached faster and that's what I'm trying to avoid." It was easier to tell the truth when he couldn't see her.
"What, so if you ever say my name that means you're gonna be in love with me or something?" the girl joked.
"Or something," he agreed.
"You're ridiculous."
"That's all you, idiot."
✧✧✧
At what they called 'lunch' a few days later— which was really just a time to stop and rest their feet— Lola came to another decision.
"Here," the girl said bluntly as she held out her notebook. Five looked up from his sister's autobiography.
"What's this?" he asked in his usual 'I'm busy' tone.
"It's for you, dimwit. You need paper, I have paper. Just call me Office Dolores."
She couldn't see his expression but his silence told her he hadn't gotten her joke, "there's a home office store called— never mind. Just take the damn paper."
"What about your autobiography?"
The brunette startled. "How'd you know about that?"
"I read it, idiot. Besides, your constant rambling annoys me so much I can't tune it out so I've picked up some things."
Oh. For some reason, that sat pleasantly well with her. She shook herself. "You need it more than I do. No one's gonna read my story once I'm dead so the best use is for you to properly do your math. That tiny space can't be good for your eyes."
He took it from her hesitantly. "Oh, well, thanks I guess."
✧✧✧
"We're in August right now, yeah?" Five asked as they walked.
The girl nodded. "Yeah, why?"
"I don't get why there's an early cold front coming in. Surely you've noticed it?"
"Oh no, I just thought it was the AC finally working," the brunette responded sarcastically. "Of course I've noticed it. What about it?"
"It's not supposed to get chilly in August, much less June and July so I'm figuring whatever happened threw the seasons out of whack and winter's going to be brutal," Five reasoned.
"I'm not looking forward to that," Lola admitted, "food's already hard to find but in the cold and buried under snow?"
The boy nodded in agreement. "We're going to have to figure something out. I can spacial jump all over the place but distance isn't going to help when I'm running low on fuel and don't have a convenient way to get under the snow."
She frowned, "too bad we can't skip winter altogether. I mean pre-apocalypse, the cold months were my favorite but right now they're terribly annoying. I wish we could just time travel right over them into spring." It took her a few moments to realize that the boy was no longer walking beside her and she turned. "Five?"
"You're a genius!"
"I am?" It was much more gratifying to be called a genius when an actual genius said it, even if she had no idea why.
The boy quickly closed the distance to stand next to her again and began to move his arms to help explain his points as he always did: "I can't get back to the past, right? But nothing says I can't get to the future— after all, I had no problem getting here. Think of it like this:"
He stretched out his arm to its full length, "this is 2002, when I disappeared." He put his hands flat against each other before he drew his right to the other side. "This is the timeline that I disappeared from, and here's present day. Now, to get back, I have to slip myself in at a precise point," he placed his right pointer finger above his left hand. "Because the past is already set in stone which is why I'm having trouble. But," he placed his right hand in its original position and used his left to make a series of jumps past it. "If I keep moving into the future anything's possible and I won't have to worry about messing it up since we're the only ones left. It's an entirely plausible idea!"
Lola frowned, "that works for you, but what about me? You said your time travel only feels like seconds to you when it's years for everyone else, so—"
"—I'll just take you with me, idiot."
"You literally just called me a genius," she said with a small smile before it disappeared, "but have you done that before? And what about when you go back, I'll be inexperienced—"
"—we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Five said dismissively, "and no, I haven't done it with anyone but myself but I can practice by spacial jumping you before the real thing."
"Great, that makes me feel so much better," Lola retorted, "but I guess anything beats more winters than I have to bear. What about using too much energy? You've said you can't jump because it takes too much fuel. Surely time travelling with be even more?"
"The pros outweigh the cons," the boy replied easily.
✧✧✧
Five really should have been trying to get what sleep he could but he was using the remaining light of the fire to transfer his equations into the blank, open space of the new notebook. New to him, really— the girl's writing still covered the first half which left the back free.
He sighed and put down the pen in order to stretch his cramping hand as his eyes moved over their small encampment. The girl was curled up on the ground, sleeping fitfully and the fire was burning out, giving way to darkness and thei—his little red wagon sat in its usual place on the other side to block the wind. Glancing over to the girl his eyes fell on the now-familiar, thick book that she carried with her everywhere.
A confused frown settled over his features as the riddle of why she carried the book had never puzzled itself out for him. There was a reason as to why he hated those damned things. Pushing aside his math in favor of curiosity, Five leaned over and picked up the girl's book. The weight was odd in his hands after so long of lifting lighter, non-book things. Studying it, he saw that the pages were well-worn and clearly used; the cover was rumpled and it had a tear in the upper right-hand corner.
On the front, it read The Book Thief and showed a picture of a girl with curly blonde hair whose features were indistinct in the dying fire. He'd never seen her without this book, bar when he first pulled her from the basement. Thumbing quickly through the pages, Five wondered why it was so important to her to lug it around in this barren wasteland.
Of course, he had his own special book with his equations but that book had a purpose— a way to possibly bring him home— and even if he wouldn't admit it to himself, it was a reminder of his family and all that he'd lost. The current one in his hands had none of those capabilities. It was just a book. Taking a quick glance at the girl to make sure she was still sleeping, the boy opened the cover. The first-page print was too tiny for him to read in the dim lighting so he flipped to the next one, the title page.
Past the dedication came the first section, which he could see and which read Prologue— a mountain range of rubble. The next line explained the section in which our narrator introduces: himself-the colors-the book thief. The first chapter caught his attention immediately: Death and chocolate.
Of all things to put together, why that title? Another riddle he had no idea how to solve but the chapter probably explained it. The shadows of the fire blurred the majority of the words but the layout of the first page was strange and unlike any book he'd ever read with short and what he presumed to be choppy sentences. Five gave a little snort, of course she wouldn't read a 'difficult' book. Flipping forward, he was surprised to find that the chapter only lasted two and a half pages and ended in a bulleted list. If he squinted and tilted the book just so, he could read what it said:
It's just a small story, really, about, amongst other things:
✧ A girl
✧ Some words
✧ An accordionist
✧ Some fanatical Germans
✧ A Jewish fist fighter
✧ And quite a lot of thievery.
I saw the book thief three times.
The book thief must be the girl on the cover, the boy thought as he turned back to the front. She must have grown up during the 1940s with the mentions of fanatical Germans. That still didn't explain why the real girl on the ground next to him clung to this book unless it was just because it was her last anchor to her old life. Of course, he could ask her but that would require initiating conversation— something that was her job.
Five had been surprised when she'd kept her promise and stayed even after his leg had healed and he no longer needed her. A part of him— a very small part mind you— was glad that she had, even if she got on his nerves with her endless chattering that shifted into moody silences as he either didn't respond or something reminded her of what she missed.
He'd never bothered to ask her what she'd gone through during her time trapped in the basement and he really didn't care; that would only slow him down in his efforts to get home. Still, it was curious to see her so brave during the day but so. . . not during the night. She didn't cry as much anymore which was a relief. That had been exceptionally irritating. Still, she somehow managed to continue to confuse and frustrate him, making references to things he didn't understand and talking about pointless subjects like what she missed.
In his opinion, wishing for things that could never be was a waste of time and he knew how precious time was. He'd come to terms with the apocalypse early on in their stay seeing as there was no time for any sort of mental or emotional breakdown like the girl had done. It was best to focus on the future and stick to the plan of getting home and stopping this, no matter the cost.
Putting the book down, Five turned back to his equations as he reminded himself of his ultimate goal. He shook his head in irritation for getting distracted. Who cared why she liked the silly book so much? He didn't, certainly. It wasn't like he'd picked it up to examine it in order to better understand her or find common ground— that was completely ridiculous. Huffing with annoyance, the boy turned back to his own book and continued to work. These equations that he was currently working on were in preparation for their winter jump, seeing as he needed more time to figure out how to jump with two people.
After he ensured their survival of the first obstacle, he'd go back to working on the equations for the way home; these had to be adjusted slightly for each winter they skipped which would be annoying but overall a good investment. This was also math he was familiar with, seeing as he had always jumped with only himself before. Once he got the right numbers, he could easily leave the girl behind and return to his proper time with his siblings.