You pulled her to the side as Klaus showed the others his book of newspaper clippings and various other papers on your mothers.
"What do you want?" she asked without meeting your eyes, her tone tense.
"You know what I want," you replied in a harsh whisper, your chin tilted up at her defiantly. "I want my memories back. And I want to know why you took them in the first place."
"I took them to spare your feelings," Allison said, raising her voice, and Diego glanced over with a furrowed brow. You shook your head at him slightly and he reluctantly turned back to Klaus. "Because your mom was a shithead, and I didn't want you to think you could only amount to what your mother amounted to. Which was being a dirty thief."
"I didn't need you to spare my feelings," you replied, shaking your head at her. "I'm not weak. I needed the truth."
"You are weak," she told you, and you flinched away from her, unsettled by the steadiness in her voice as she insulted you. "Every day you continue to prove that. You're upset that I hid something from you when I was trying to protect you like nobody ever did for me. We all have shit to work through, Eight. Get over yourself."
You stared up at her, your lips parting slightly in surprise. Allison had always been the kind one, the gentle one, the one you went to for comfort. What was going on?
"I trusted you," you said slowly. "I trusted you with a lot of things. I've told you more than any of the others. All I wanted was your honesty in return."
"And you have it," she said coldly, leaning down so that she was eye level with you. "Your mother was a bitch. All she wanted was money for her precious drugs. And you're going to be just like her."
"Shut up," you snapped, shaking your head at her. "Just... God, Allison. What the fuck?" Your hands clenched and unclenched at your sides, the desire to hit her overwhelming. "I don't do drugs, and you know that. You know what? I don't know why I'm arguing with you right now. You can't see reason." You spun to face the others, desperate for a change in topic - and company.
You suddenly felt the beginning of a strong wind again, and you stumbled away from everyone, leaning against the wall in the hallway outside the room. You sat heavily on the floor and formed a shield around yourself, pleading inwardly that it would protect you.
The wind slammed right through it, smacking your head back against the wall. You groaned, squeezing your eyes shut until the wind passed. It felt less like wind now and more like a physical thing, like a solid rock shoving you around.
You took a shaky breath and tried to clear your throbbing head, slowly making your way back into the room.
"We need to figure out who did this!" Klaus was saying, poking his book of papers aggressively. "This is the main thing!"
"Oh, is that all you care about?" Diego asked, leaning on the table and glaring at Klaus. "'Cuz it was obviously Dad, okay? He hated us in '63, boom! Murdered!"
"Well, Dad wasn't pure evil," you said, frowning. "He wouldn't kill innocent people."
"You're too innocent for this conversation, Eight," Diego interrupted as Allison laughed dryly.
You glared up at him, squaring your shoulders.
"Just because I look little doesn't mean I am. I've gone through just as much shit as you."
"She does still hesitate when she cusses," Klaus pointed out, and you grit your teeth, turning away from them.
"All I'm saying is this: Dad never killed anyone, as far as we know."
"Uh, Kenn-"
"Yeah, I knew you would say that, Diego," you interrupted. "But we don't actually know that was him."
"Still, we all know who this was," Diego said, looking around. Everyone except Klaus nodded, and you scoffed.
Before you could say anything, everyone turned to face Luther, who had just walked in.
"Little late for a meeting, pal!" Diego called, and Luther raised his arms at his sides in annoyance.
"We were worried about you," you cut in, elbowing Diego. "You all right?"
"I was being held captive by the Sparrows," Luther said, looking around at all of you.
"What?" Allison asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
"Oh," you said quietly, blinking at him from across the room. "Sorry."
"Wait," he said slowly, his brow furrowing. "None of you noticed?"
The room suddenly erupted in unenthusiastic replies.
"Of course!"
"Yeah, oh my gosh, are you all right?"
"Well, we're just happy you're home safe," Klaus added, lifting his beer bottle in the air.
"Yeah, okay, yeah," Luther said sarcastically as he walked into the room.
"Stop lying!"
"We were so worried!"
"To be fair," Klaus cut in, "Eight did want to check up on you. But we had other priorities."
Luther cast you a curious look, and you stared at the ground.
"I just wanted to make sure he was okay. And clearly he wasn't."
"Wait, did they hurt you?" Allison asked in a worried tone, and you rolled your eyes. She only cared about Luther, apparently.
"Who, the Sparrows? God no. Not at all. Excellent hosts," he said cheerily as he placed a bag on the table. "Really quite charming, actually. Oh, and you should see their gym! Outstanding. I really think we've got these guys all wrong."
"Says the guy they kidnapped," Allison said, holding up a mini poster they had left in the bag.
"Well, maybe Luther's right," you began, but then you were interrupted by a shrill noise coming from the bag. Nobody else seemed to notice it, however, so you looked away.
Diego whistled to get Luther's attention.
"What did they want?" he spoke as if talking to a small child, and Luther replied immediately.
"Marcus. He's missing, and they want him back. Unharmed." He said it as though it should have been obvious, but with Allison... you didn't know anymore.
"We don't have him," Viktor said dubiously, and Luther looked around at all of you, frowning.
"Oh. Damn." He chuckled. "I was sort of hoping we'd solve that one quickly and move on to problem number two. Disappearing people."
Stan suddenly smacked a vase with his pool stick, shattering it, and everyone turned to face him.
"Uh, it was the, it was the wind!"
"Go easy on him," you told Diego as he clenched his fists.
"Listen, kid!"
...
3rd person: Five and Lila
Five opened the bathroom door, walking in to reveal Lila taking a bubble bath.
"What the hell are you doin' in here?" he asked as she glared at him.
"Shaving my nest, you little perv."
"Don't flatter yourself, Lila," he said with a fake smile, sticking his hands in his pockets. "I like my women a little less likely to kill me in my sleep."
"That doesn't explain your interest in (Y/N)," Lila said, sneakily reaching for a knife in her bag. "She seems to want to kill you often."
"That's what I came here to talk about," Five said just as Lila whipped the knife at him. He spatial jumped to the other side of the room without hesitation, and Lila turned to face him, smiling.
She spatial jumped behind him and smashed his head into a glass picture frame hanging on the wall, shattering it. Five grunted, wrenching himself away and readying himself for a fight. Lila kicked and punched him in the face repeatedly before he fell onto the floor, turning to look at her with loathing reflected in his pale green eyes.
He grabbed a towel from the corner of the bathtub, spinning around and getting punched in the face again. He fought back this time, however, and elbowed her in the nose, knocking her back. He spun around behind her, wrapping the towel around her neck and pressing his knee into her back to force her into it. He tried to avoid looking at anything but the back of her head, suddenly feeling guilty for doing this to (Y/N).
But he needed to make sure she was safe. He couldn't have her near Lila.
Lila began choking, but then spatial jumped away, grabbing the knife from where it was embedded into the wall. Five walked toward her, but she flashed in front of him, attempting to stab him with the knife as he dodged it.
She kicked him in the stomach, nearly causing him to fall, before punching him in the face once again. Five chopped under her chin with his hand, knocking her head back with a snapping noise. He grabbed the tray that held the towels, blocking her advances with the knife until it stabbed through the tray, only inches away from her face. He breathed heavily as he pushed against the tray, the moment seemingly taking hours to pass before he yelled and knocked it to the ground.
They resumed their struggle, punching and kicking each other repeatedly, until Five squirted shampoo in Lila's eyes. She made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat and began rubbing her eyes as Five spun and kicked her in the face. She shouted, leaning down and grabbing a towel as she spoke angrily.
"All right, enough." She wrapped the towel around herself, breathing heavily. "I forgot about how much I hate you, you puny little turd."
Five leaned back against the bath, catching his breath.
"The feeling's mutual, Lila. And as much as I'd love to stand here shivving each other, I have bigger concerns than you."
"Yeah?" Lila asked, still wiping the shampoo out of her eyes. "Like what?"
"What do you know about the Grandfather Paradox?" he asked, striding closer.
"Well, I read the same training manuals as you did. Why?"
"Because it's happening." Five's tone turned dark as he looked at Lila, her eyebrows raising.
"Are you being stupid?"
"I need to use your briefcase to find Herb and figure out how to fix this."
"It's over there, with my name on it," Lila said, jerking her head in that direction. "It's a useless piece of shit. It doesn't work anymore."
Five walked over to the where she'd motioned, frowning and lifting two briefcases onto the rim of the bath.
"Lila, why is it you have two briefcases?"
"Mm," Lila replied dryly, inspecting her fingernails. "One's yours. Nicked it from the Sparrows. Go on, give it a go." Five opened it. "First we try yours." It flashed a red light before powering down, and Five's brow furrowed before he quickly reached for the next one. "And then we try mine!" The same thing happened, and Five's breathing hitched in his throat.
"This can't be happening. The odds of one of them failing, it's in the millions, but two of them-"
"Astronomical," Lila finished without interest. "Yeah. So, why are you so worked up about this, little man? We still have time to fix this."
Five was pacing, running his hands through his messy hair in agitation.
"We might have time, but some people don't, all right?!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lila asked, suddenly interested. "Go on."
Five looked at her suspiciously before answering.
"For some reason, Eight is more affected by it than others. This could kill her, and I need to find out how to stop it before it does."
"You can say her name, you know," Lila said, but she frowned. "She's affected by what, exactly?"
"There are paradox waves that are causing animals to disappear," Five said quickly, shaking his head. "She feels them, though. Strongly. So we need to fix this fast."
"Well, shit," Lila said quietly, before clearing her throat and feigning disinterest. "I suppose this means we're going to have to work together."
They looked at each other in disgust.