< August 1963 >
It felt as though she had been falling for years as her body hit the ground in a very unflattering way. Kate was more than worried about where she had ended up, knowing that last time Five jumped, he had ended up alone in a post-apocalyptic world. She jumped from the ground, dusting off her dark clothes and glancing around at where she had ended up; her hands rested on the emergency gun which was concealed under her jacket. Her eyes scanned the alley that she had landed in and found it more or less abandoned, which made her nervous, where were the others? They had all travelled together when the world was about to end but now, she was in an alley on her own and they were nowhere to be seen. There was a sign for a warehouse of some kind with a sign showing, Commerce and Knox but the place was in darkness and Kate didn't want to take her chances there. It was evening and there were streetlights lighting up most of the road ahead of her, stores were closed and hardly anyone was walking around the streets.
"Diego?" She called quietly, wrapping her jacket closer around herself as it was slightly chilly and the wind was nipping at her. No response, she tried getting louder but didn't want to shout because she didn't want unwanted attention coming her way. "Five? Allison? Klaus?"
There was still no answer, but instead of leaving the alley, she decided to stay where she was. Maybe something had gone wrong and the rest of the siblings would arrive shortly after her? Maybe they were all going to land in this alley at different times and she needed to wait patiently for them. Wrapping her jacket as close to her body as possible, Kate lowered herself to the ground, hiding herself behind two large garbage containers so that she wouldn't be seen but she could keep an eye out for anyone coming her way. Even though she was desperate to see someone familiar, any of the siblings, she didn't care which one; her eyes were drooping and the after effects of time travel were getting to her. Before she knew it, her eyes were closed and she had fallen asleep.
Kate woke up early the next morning, hearing people on the streets and when she opened her eyes, she was almost blinded by the scorching sun that was not hidden by a single cloud. Cursing at herself, she knew that she could have missed one of the siblings if they had arrived that night but tried not to dwell on it because there were more important things to worry about. She couldn't stay in this place without some kind of plan, to start with, she didn't even know where she was or what year it was and they were both important facts to figure out. Stepping out of the alley felt more unnerving than anything she had done before and she left the safety of the garbage, heading towards the nearest store to check whether they had any newspapers.
Luckily, outside the nearest newsstand there was a pile of newspapers and she hurriedly picked up the first one on the pile. Reading the date at the top of the page, her eyes widened in shock: August 19th 1963. How had she been time travelled into the sixties? Glancing around the streets, she realised that it made sense; there weren't many cars on the road and the ones that were there seemed very old-fashioned. The people walking the streets wore bright clothes and their hairstyles were all unusually stylish. She had always wondered what things looked like during this time but had never expected to find out for herself by being jumped back into this period. All she knew was that the people walking down the streets were sending her strange glances as she didn't really look in place in this era; she knew that one of the first things she needed to do was to find some appropriate clothing options for the sixties.
She continued to flick through the pages of the newspaper, hoping to find out some more about this particular time that she was living in but there weren't many big stories to read about. It seemed this paper was focused solely on the news in Dallas, as that was where she was based and most stories just talked about the civil rights movement which was taking place in that very town. Although impressed with the time travel and the fact that she could see so many interesting events taking place from this new viewpoint, Kate knew that something bigger was going to happen and she couldn't stand out too much. Her plan was to blend in with this period until Five, or one of the other siblings came around and then work out what their next plan was. As great as the sixties could be for them, it wasn't right to stay in an era where they weren't supposed to exist.
"If you're gonna read it, you gotta pay for it!" A deep voice shouted, breaking her train of thought and she looked up from the newspaper, seeing the store owner glaring at her. Apologising quickly, she dropped the newspaper down and moved away from the front of the store.
Kate checked her pockets for any loose change that she might have carried with her, it wasn't a lot but it was enough to keep her going for a few days in the sixties. She decided to head to a cheaper looking clothing store and buy the cheapest appropriate dress that they had, finding a dark green dress which was exactly her size and changing into it almost immediately. Now that she wasn't getting so many strange glances on the street, she needed to find somewhere to stay and came across a block of apartments. The landlord seemed rather angry and gave her the smallest apartment, one towards the bottom of the building and one that was rather overrun with mould and dust. Kate swore that something ran over her feet when he unlocked the door but it was better than a street and once, she earned some more money, she would be able to make it her own; for as long as she needed to.
As she walked down the street, people still gave her funny glances but that wasn't because of her sticking out from being too modern; it was simply due to the colour of her skin. That was something that Kate had forgotten when contemplating the sixties, she had forgotten that she was going to face racial abuse and discrimination simply because of her skin colour and she hated it. But she was going to have to suck it up and endure it, not wanting to cause a blip in the timeline. She tried to ignore the stares, busying herself by looking into store windows and looking at the different things being sold; finding it interesting and enjoying many parts of this period more than she should. She was still worried about the siblings and Diego, hoping that they were safe but also knowing that her boyfriend was notorious for getting into trouble. She was juts hoping that they found each other soon because things seemed rather lonely in this era and she missed them all. Suddenly, she stopped and read over the sign in the window of a brightly lit café.
Pushing open the door, Kate walked up to the counter and stood, she waited for the man behind the counter to talk to her but he completely ignored her. Clearing her throat, she decided to speak first because she was desperate for this job and wasn't going to let anything stop her. "Excuse me, are you still hiring?"
The man behind the counter, dressed in complete white clothing including a small white hat on his head, glanced up at her before looking back down at the register that he was working with. He answered her, keeping his voice low as he didn't want to drag any unwanted attention to their conversation. "Not you."
"Can't I have an interview or something first?"
"We don't employ negros." He answered bluntly, his head still lowered and it was then that Kate noticed the signs around the café. It was a white-only café and the customers inside were all white, watching her with piercing glares as they wondered why she had entered this place when she wasn't welcome. She felt her cheeks redden in embarrassment as she had momentarily forgotten about the discrimination that she would face but she wasn't going to back down. Working at this café would give her enough money to pay her rent and more, she would be set in this era and wouldn't have to worry about anything. Plus, she would be doing something that she had experience in and she was good at it, if only Agnes could see what she was doing now; the old woman would have been cheering her on.
"Please, I need a job and I'm really good at baking." She pleaded, leaning closer to him over the counter because she didn't want everyone in the café to hear her desperation but she wanted him to know that she was serious about this. "Let me make you something, one thing and see if you like it. Please, just give me a chance?"
"What's the harm, David?" A feminine voice said from the doorway of the kitchen, an older woman with her hair pulled back into a bun and her hands placed firmly on her hips. She looked slightly like Agnes but with a tighter expression, not looking as though she would be nice to Kate but willing to take a chance on her. "The negro wants to bake, so let her."
David, the owner of the café didn't seem to want to fight with his longest working waitress and agreed to allow Kate to try for the job; despite standing firm that they would not hire her. The agreement was that she would come into the kitchen from the backdoor so that their white customers wouldn't know that they had given her a chance; Kate hated the racial superiority but needed a job and didn't complain. As soon as she was inside the kitchen, she was in her element and began putting ingredients together for brownies that hadn't even been thought of in the sixties. It was the recipe that she had worked on with Agnes, one of their favourites and something that she baked every year for Diego's birthday (even though he would complain about the amount of sugar inside them – he would still eat them all to please her.) David and the waitress watched her move around the kitchen effortlessly and were more than surprised when she plated something that actually looked edible.
They both took large bites of the brownie pieces as Kate watched, holding her breath and hoping that they would like what she made and offer her the job. She knew that the job was simply for a waitress and she wouldn't get that, as she was not white but she was hoping that this would prove her intent. She didn't even care if they wanted to hire her as a cleaner; she just needed a job. The two couldn't fathom how amazing the brownies tasted, the waitress took another bite of hers and salvaged the taste in her mouth. David remained stone-faced, not wanting to give anything away and put his brownie piece back on the plate, the large bite remaining. "We're still not hiring."
"Please, I know that they're good and I can make more-"
"Wait, David, I have an idea." The waitress interrupted him, although she didn't own the café, she seemed to be able to boss the owner around and Kate wondered what was happening behind the scenes. She had barely swallowed her brownie as she spoke, crumbs falling out of her mouth as she pointed at Kate. "You want to work here, correct?"
"Please, I need this job."
"Fine, you work here and you bake but you stay in the back." The woman said bluntly, pointing her finger as she spoke and letting them know that this was serious. Kate knew that this woman was someone to not mess around with and she hoped that she never got on the bad side of her. "When you come in, you go through the back door, when you leave, back door. You don't come out of that room, no one sees you and no one hears you. We'll pay you decently for your work but no one can know that we're polluting this town, understood?"
Nodding her head, she tried not to smile too much as she knew that she was getting something that she wanted but didn't want to look too bold about it. "Completely."
"Good, start tomorrow. Store opens at nine, make sure you're here at eight."
It had been a few weeks since Kate had been blasted into the 1960's and she had found her feet. She had her own apartment which was slowly getting better, she earned good money at the café and it was worth the secrecy of her occupation. There weren't many people she had befriended as she didn't want to get too close to people that she shouldn't know and she had been keeping her eyes out for the siblings but hadn't come across much. Her brain often wondered about the others, she hoped that they were safe wherever they were. Maybe they weren't in Dallas at all? Maybe they weren't living in the sixties either? Maybe Five had accidentally scattered them across the world at completely different time spots and they would never see each other again? If that was the case then she wondered when she would be able to forget about them, whether she would be able to move on from them and start a new life? No, Kate knew that no matter how hard she tried the Hargreeves family were her family and she could never move on without them.
Carrying her pay in her stylish purse, Kate was on her way to look at furniture for her apartment. She had managed to pay for someone to look at the mould and to terminate the rats that she was sure were living with her; she had spent her free time dusting the entire place and doing her own decorating because she had learned enough in the modern era to know that she wasn't going to pay a man to do a worse job than what she could do. She painted the walls a brighter colour and stuck flowery wallpaper on some of the walls to add more vibrancy to her home. Now that the base of the apartment had been fixed, she wanted to add furniture that would compliment her home and had her payslip in her purse as that was what the bulk of it would be spent on. As she was walking down the street, she almost had a heart attack as she recognised a head of dark hair just ahead of her in the street.
"Allison?" She called, almost not believing that it was real but when the woman turned around, she felt as though she was about to cry because it really was Allison.
"Katy?" Allison gasped, running down the street towards her and engulfing her into a hug as they gripped onto each other. "Oh my God, is it really you?"
"I think so, what happened?" Kate asked as they pulled away from each other, still holding onto each other's arms and she took the chance to glance at where Allison had come from; seeing a group of darker skinned women watching them. They probably wondered how the two knew each other, Kate wondered how honest Allison had been with her new friends and wondered how long she had been living in this period. Maybe if Allison was here then that meant that the other siblings were nearby as well?
"Five must have flashed us back to the sixties, isn't it incredible?"
"Incredible isn't the word I'd use to describe it. Where is everyone else?"
Allison shook her head, a smile still plastered on her face as she was more than happy to have a reunion with someone that she thought she would never see again. "I have no idea, you're the first one I've seen."
"You didn't go looking for them?" Kate narrowed her eyes; she had been sure that the siblings would all be looking for each other; that they would want to know where their loved ones were. She was surprised that Allison didn't care, it made her wonder if anyone had been worried about her. She had been worrying for them and didn't think about whether they had been looking for her. Kate felt stupid that she had been looking for the siblings but it seemed that none of them had been looking for her.
"I couldn't, Katy, I couldn't speak. How could I do anything without my voice? I was lucky enough to find these girls, they've been taking care of me."
Kate felt her heartbeat quicken when she noticed a piece of jewellery flashing in the sunlight and had to grab Allison's hand to inspect it. "Wait, is that a ring?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that..." She trailed off, as if it wasn't a big deal. "I'm married."
"Allison, what do you mean, you're married? This isn't where we belong, we have to get home."
This time Allison looked annoyed and furrowed her eyebrows, not wanting to get told off by someone for living her life. "Our home is destroyed, don't you remember? Massive end of the world which we had to escape? Ray is amazing, he gave me a purpose, he's my second chance."
"How are you going to explain all of this to him when we have to leave?" Kate wondered, knowing that she had been avoiding relationships with people because she didn't want to upset the timeline and create friendships with people who shouldn't even know she exists.
"How do you know that we're going to leave? I've been here for two years, maybe we're never going to go back. This is my life now and I'm happy with it, I get to make a real difference. Maybe I don't want to go back."
"So, you're not going to help me look for them? Vanya? Diego? Luther?" Kate dropped her hands from Allison's arm, deciding that she regretted calling her name in the street. She wished that she had just walked in the opposite direction because it would have kept her hope rather than dismissing it. "I thought you were better than that."
< November 15th 1963 >
Five sat on the couch of the warehouse that he had just taken over, allowing the owner of said warehouse, Elliot to do most of the work as he figured out what had happened to his family. Elliot was rather scared of everything which worked for Five because he liked to be the one in charge, giving the orders, especially since the end of the world was coming and he needed to figure out how to stop it. As he was deep in thought, trying to figure out exactly where his siblings could be in this time frame, Elliot dropped a box of donuts in front of him; not knowing when the last time the boy had eaten and wondering if he might be peckish from all the pacing he had been doing. Five wasn't one for indulging himself as there were bigger problems in front of him, but even he couldn't ignore the growling of his stomach; he reached into the box and pulled out a donut, biting into it and licking his lips with a strange expression on his face. "What is it? Are you allergic to something?" Elliot panicked, thinking that he had done something wrong and rushed to his side.
"Where did you get these from?"
Once again, the man's eyes widened with fear and he rambled. "Some café in town...I think...I usually go there for coffee but they make really nice cakes...not that the donuts aren't nice because they're really nice...I just prefer cakes..."
"Stop rambling." Five snapped, wiping the jam from the side of his mouth as it had spilled when he bit into the donut and shoved a piece of paper across the table. "Write down the address."
a/n: i hope that you're enjoying the book so far, i really enjoyed writing the characters in the sixties so get ready for drama 😅 -lizzie ⭐️
date published: 09/01/22