❤︎
The Handler slurped on the rest of her liquidized lunch as she finished telling her story. (Y/n) was just barely paying attention.
"And that's how Phil determined that the archduke just had to go." She concluded.
Five set down his glass of water while the girl next to him wiped her hands on her pants.
"Care for desert?"
Five shook his head. "I had a bad twinkie in the apocalypse once. It kind of put me off deserts."
The Handler looked to (Y/n) expectantly but she waved her off.
"I'm a little full, but thanks for the offer." She said.
"Please, indulge me." The woman pushed over to the small candy bowl in front of them and after the two teens exchanged a look, they both decided to have one.
Five took two pieces and handed one over to (Y/n). They opened their wrapped candies and popped them into their mouths, inspecting the taste while the woman in front of them lit her old fashioned cigarette.
"What's that taste like to you?" She asked.
The two of them chewed a bit more until a familiar taste came to their mind.
"The 1950s?" Five said.
"I was getting some 80s vibes." (Y/n) added.
"Percisely right. Our clever metaphysics division concocted a way to perfectly distill an entire decade into a single candy." The Handler picked up a different wrapped candy from the bowl.
"This one's modeled after the Fudge Mutt, America's favorite in 1955."
"Remarkable." Muttered Five.
"You'll be happy to know it's the very division that's building your new body."
Confused, (Y/n) glanced between the two of them.
"Wait, what do you mean by his 'new body'?" She questioned.
For a moment, Five couldn't think of the right words on how to explain what they meant by The Handler spoke before he could.
"My dear, Number Five will be getting his old body back. Well, technically it'll be his 'new body' but all the same. He'll be back to his old self in no time." She explained to her.
(Y/n) didn't know what to think. A part of her didn't want Five to turn back to his older body, she kinda enjoyed having someone her age mentality also be her physical age at the same time. She had been so alone all this time for so long, what was she going to do when Five went back to normal? It was a selfish wish to want Five to stay young, but she knew he wasn't really happy in his thirteen year old body.
"Oh." She said simply. (Y/n) couldn't bring herself to look at Five.
"Oh, that reminds me. I have something for you." The blonde woman pressed a button on her intercom. "Carla?"
"Yes?" A high voice answered.
"Would you bring the box in, please?"
"Certainly."
Just a few seconds after The Handler hung up, the door opened and in came a middle aged light brown haired woman carrying a large rectangular box. Carla set the box on the woman's desk, flashing a smile that seemed a bit too forced for (Y/n) then promptly left the room. The Handler got up from her desk and stood off to the side of Five as he approached the box.
"Go ahead. Open it." She told him and Five did just that.
(Y/n) saw that inside the box was a dark navy blue suit. It was a big too large for him at the moment but she figured that after he got his new body, it would fit just fine.
"Clothes make the man, Five. Won't it be nice when you can actually wear it? Very soon, I assure you. They're perfecting your body as we speak." The Handler grinned.
"Thank you. It's a very kind gift." Five said, closing the box up again.
Suddenly, he turned around to the opposite side of the room and pointed to one of the nicknacks on her shelf.
"Is that a Chinese flamethrower?" He asked.
"Good eye. War. Such a fascinating concept. A temporary slave for a permanent human flaw. Course, it's a bit easier to see from 30,000 feet." She informed as the three of them came up to the flamethrower on her stand.
"These are just some of the things I've collected on my travels. M26 gernades from the Vietnam War."
The Handler bounced some old gernades in her hand as if she wasn't afraid of it detonating at anytime.
"And this, the most noteworthy, perhaps." She raised a smaller pistol in her hand and aimed it somewhere else in the room. "My Walther pistol. The very one that Hitler used to kill himself. We're not supposed to take these kind of things, but... he wasn't gonna use it anymore."
(Y/n) wanted to let out a small laugh at the joke but her pride didn't let her. It was a little funny.
"Feel how perfectly balanced that is. Hm?"
She handed the gun over to Five and he looked it over, not very interested in the weapon so he attempted to change the subject.
"I had some thoughts I wanted to run by you. Some suggestions to improve Commission protocol." He inquired.
"Mm! Shaking things up already. I admire that." The Handler caressed the side of Five's face and (Y/n) was so close to grabbing this woman's wrist and snapping it.
"Go on. Do tell!"
As she went back over to her desk, Five looked over to (Y/n) for a moment then started to tell his idea.
"Gloria. The tube operator. Wouldn't it be simpler if case managers were to send their own messages? Like say, if I sent a message to (Y/n) while she's on her own mission because I was the one who wrote it."
The Handler hummed. "I appreciate the thought. I really do. But everyone loves Gloria. I-- I would never hear the end of it. She's been with the Commission family for years, and she's this close to making pension."
Before Five could carry on the conversation any further, a knock at the door cut them off. A panting and tired Dot came into the room, holding a red folder.
"Sorry to interrupt. May I have a moment alone?" Dot asked.
"Of course. Duty calls. We'll continue this discussion later, Five. And (Y/n), I think it's about time you head back to training. Alastair must be waiting for you there." The woman told them.
"Sure. May I?" Five wondered, gesturing to the candy bowl.
"Please." She welcomed him, and the boy took a few more pieces of candy.
Five grabbed (Y/n)'s wrist and they both left the room together to head back to their respective jobs. But just as they turned a corner, he stopped them from going any further. Luckily, it was still just a few minutes before lunch was ending so there were almost no people in the hallways.
"Okay, we need to keep an eye on Dot. I have a feeling she's coming onto me and our plan. I say we head to the Tube room and we wait there for any--" Five twisted back to face (Y/n) but stopped talking once he saw her expression.
"(Y/n)?"
She kept her eyes to the floor until she felt finally brave enough to look him in the eyes.
"Your new body? You're going back to your elder body?" She questioned him, a sad look in her eyes.
Five sighed. "(Y/n), you know that this isn't the body that I belong in. I belong in my 58 year old body, not in this one. If I stay in this body, then I'm stuck like this forever. I don't want that."
"Well, maybe I did." (Y/n) whispered under her breath.
Shocked, Five asked as he grew slightly angry, "You want me to be stuck in this stupid teenage body forever? Do you want me to be miserable?"
"You would have been stuck forever but at least you wouldn't have been alone!" She shouted at him.
Five's anger dimmed as soon as he saw just as sad and mad (Y/n) was. But a part of him was confused, why did she want him to stay young so bad?
"I think you're forgetting that I'm stuck like this forever too! I'm stuck this age for the rest of my god forsaken life, Five! And I didn't even get a choice! God, I want you to stay with me. I want you to stay like this with me so I could finally not be alone anymore. I want you with me."
Small tears were building up in her eyes but she didn't dare let them fall. But a depressed, dead laugh escaped her lips.
"But it's selfish of me to want you to stay like this just so I could have someone with me. Just so I could have you by my side again but..." She shrugged.
"Why should I keep you from going back to something you liked better than this. And I guess... another part of me is also jealous."
"Jealous?" Five asked.
"I'm slightly jealous that you can actually go back to your correct age. That you have a choice. I want that. I'm so tired of being in this body. I just wanna be normal."
Five had no idea what to say. He knew of her being sick of her thirteen year old body but he didn't see just how tired and mad she was of being stuck like that. And he was pretty sure no one else, not even their family, saw it.
He didn't speak, but instead took her hands in his, softly rubbing them with his thumbs. (Y/n) wasn't crying, she felt too tired to. She didn't fight his touch, she found herself wanting more and put her forehead against his, unconsciously.
This was the most intimate they had ever gotten with each other besides hugging. Hugs were their thing as kids, it wasn't unknown to them if one of them needed to take comfort in each other. They both could feel those familiar butterflies in their stomaches, that giddiness whenever they held each other.
But there was another feeling, there was that feeling of just comfort and support, something neither of them have properly gotten in forever. This was a feeling of them just loving each other's presence.
"No one's normal in our family, (Y/n). No matter how much we try. But to me, you're perfect." Five said and (Y/n) let out a watery laugh.
"And you're sappy."
Five groaned at her joke and she could feel the depressing atmosphere leave them.
"As soon as we get back and stop this apocalypse, we'll find the cure to get you back your aging." Five assured her.
"But I couldn't even figure it out with Reginald. How are we supposed to find a cure without him?" She pondered.
"You're forgetting the good thing, (Y/n). I'm not Dad. I'm going to find that cure. I promise."
The loud buzzer, similar to the one that announced lunch time, sounded throughout the whole building, meaning that lunch was over. As people began to fill the hallways again, the two of them reluctantly let go of each other. But those butterflies never left.
"I think... I think I should get going back to Alastair before he tries to come find me." (Y/n) suggested.
Five resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his name. "Yeah, you should probably go do that. I'll be around here, okay?"
The (h/c) haired girl nodded, a tiny smile on the edge of her lips as she left the hallway to the shooting area, disappearing into the crowd. Five let out another sigh as he watched her leave, in his mind, he wanted to beg her to stay with him and forget about Alastair but seeing the two of them together would be more suspicious.
So instead, he waited at the corner between the tube room and the office where he worked. Just as he turned around, he noticed Dot carrying a message tube as she rushed to the room across the hall and quickly flashed into tube room, listening to the conversation.
-
As she entered the shooting area, the first thing she noticed was Alastair sitting patiently on a chair in front of one of the booths. Two water bottles stood side by side on the desk, one opened by him and another unopened one. Hearing the door open, he looked up and a grin set on his face when he saw it was (Y/n) who had come in.
"Hey! I was wondering where you were. You didn't show up for lunch, everything all right?" Alastair asked a bit concerned.
"Yeah! Yeah, everything's fine." (Y/n) said, brushing away all the feelings she had just felt a few minutes ago. "The Handler asked Five and I have to have lunch with her."
Alastair's eyebrow raised.
"The Handler wanted to have lunch with you and Five?"
"Yes? Is that a bad thing?" She questioned.
"Well... it's just that, from what I heard, The Handler only asks to have lunch with people if she knows they're hiding something to get close to them or something."
"What do you mean?" (Y/n), a bit worried, asked him.
"She's not really one of the greatest people but she can sniff out if somethings wrong the moment it happens. She's like this weird ass dog. My dad, oh, he hates her. He thinks that one day she's just gonna take over the whole Commission and no one will be able to stop her." He told her, slightly shuddering at the thought of the woman's red lipped smile.
(Y/n) froze in her spot as she heard Alastair's words. She hadn't known The Handler for long, but she knew that the son of a bitch was a smart, cunning woman. If what Alastair said was true, then...
Five was in danger.
"Shit!" She cursed, heading back to the door.
"Woah, where are you going? We gotta--" Alastair was interrupted by (Y/n).
"I need to go get Five, he's in danger. I have to go!"
Just as she opened the door to leave, she turned back to him and pointed to the unopened water bottle in the booth.
"Can I have that?"
-
(Y/n) raced down the hallways, looking for Five. She really hoped that he was still where he was before. All of a sudden, gunshots and screaming could be heard just from down the hall. She ran towards the shots, passing by a group of screaming management workers as an alarm blared.
SECURITY TO TUBE ROOM
SECURITY BREACH IN TUBE ROOM
SECURITY--
(Y/n) finally made it to the tube room and was about to enter when loud gunshots filled her ears, causing her to flinch and cover her ears at the loud sounds.
When the small ringing in her ears finally stopped, she was able to make out The Handler's voice.
"...can't keep this up, Five. We both know that even you have a limit. I saved you from a lifetime of being alone. You owe me." She hissed.
The sound of her gun clicking told (Y/n) that she was finally out of bullets, and dumped out the water from the plastic bottle into her hand, creating a long water tentacle around her arm.
She quietly and swiftly sneaked up from behind the platinum haired woman and whipped her water tentacle around The Handler's arm and gun. Before she could even realize what happened, (Y/n) froze the other end of the tentacle, pulling her towards her. A hard fist was met with the woman's face and she ended up knocked to the ground. It wasn't really her initial plan in the first place but hey, it worked.
"I do owe a debt." Five said then quickly flashed right next to (Y/n), pulling on the pin of a grenade. "But it's not to you."
As The Handler rose from the ground, slightly dizzy from the girl's punch, her eyes laid on the grenade in Five's hand and they immediately widened. With a short wave from (Y/n) and a large smile from Five, the grenade was thrown into the tube room.
"Shit."
The two of them ran out of the room and hid together behind the brick wall. They just barely had enough time before--
BOOM!
Fire and glass flew out of the room as nearby people screamed from the explosion. Five spacial jumped them both to the briefcase room.
Five snatched one of the thick briefcases from the shelf and reset the time switch on the latches for the Wednesday after they left. They needed to leave as fast as they could before security reached them. But there was one last thing (Y/n) needed to do before they left.
"Five, wait. I need to do something real quick." She stopped him before he pulled the pin on his second grenade.
"(Y/n), we need to go, now." He strictly told her.
"Just go before me! I'll follow just after you with another suitcase, I promise!"
She grabbed another black case from the shelf and looked back to Five, giving him a small and fast peck on the cheek.
"See you there."
Then (Y/n) ran out of the room and down the hallway to the shooting area where no doubt Alastair would be waiting. Five shook the grin off his face and quickly back to what he was doing. Just before opening the door and leaving, he pulled the pin with his mouth of his last grenade and tossed it amongst the shelves of the many briefcases. He sped out of the room, past the man working at his desk.
"Hey, what are you doing--" The man was cut off by the grenade going off and was flung away from the explosion.
Five, with the last of his energy, switched the latches of the briefcase and time travelled back to his own time before the fire hit him.
He could only now just hope that (Y/n) got back home safe too.
-
She heard the explosion before she even reached Alastair and prayed in her head that Five got out unscathed. She was just about to turn a corner when a large group of security guards in what looked like gas masks passed by. (Y/n) pulled back to hide behind the corner and waited for all of them to go by. Once she saw it was clear, she continued to way to the shooting area where she hoped Alastair would be.
She smiled in victory as she saw that the door was unguarded and opened it to make her way inside. There, Alastair was sitting in a booth, messing with the rifle they were using earlier. He had waited for her.
"Alastair!" She called out as she approached him.
He looked up and sighed in relief. "There you are, I was starting to get worried." But then he scanned over her tired and exhausted body.
"Why are you so sweaty? Are you okay? What happened?" He began to ask her all these questions.
"Hey, hey, I'm fine. See? But... there's something I need to tell you." (Y/n) was about to tell him when he cut her off.
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
She sighed, and that gave Alastair his answer. "What gave it away?"
"Well, you did just burst in here after leaving just a few minutes ago. Plus, there's a security breach in the tube room but it's not my place to tell." They both laughed together before it dialed down.
"I need to get back to the others. To my... family. To Five. I'm sorry, Alastair." (Y/n) faltered as she looked down to the ground.
While he was sad and disappointed that his friend was leaving, he understood. A part of him wanted to ask her to stay, but guessing by the rush she was in, if she did stay, she would be dead the moment she stepped out that door.
"It's okay, I get it, really. I just wish... we had more than one day to get to know each other more." He said, a sad smile on his lips.
"Me too. I really do."
(Y/n) pulled him into a tight hug, his taller figure towered over her but they could care less. Alastair rested his head on top of hers and (Y/n)'s head was smushed into his chest. They wanted to make the moment last a little longer, but as the alarms continued to ring, (Y/n) knew it was time for her to go back. Hesitantly, she let go of him.
Looking up at him, she flashed him a slight smirk.
"You know what time to find me. Until then, Alastair Frenda."
"Until then, (Y/n) Hargreeves."
She flicked the latch on the briefcase and a blue blur overtook her body until she finally disappeared from his view, leaving Alastair alone once again.
-
Wednesday. 8:15 am (...again)
"Hold the phone. We all died fighting this thing the first time around. Remember?" Klaus reminded everyone.
"Klaus, shockingly, has a point." Diego added in. "What gives us a win this time?"
The group discussion was cut off by the sound of thunder crackling and flashes of blue light coming from above the bar where they were standing. Five landed hard stomach first on top of the briefcase onto the bar, groaning in pain as he did so.
"Je--Jesus!" Allison screeched.
Dust flew everywhere as everyone took in notice of Five's sudden appearence.
"You guys, am I still high, or do you see him, too?" Klaus asked but no one paid attention to his question.
"Five, where have you been?" Luther interrogated as they helped a stumbling Five off the counter.
"Are you all right?" Allison asked him.
"Who did this?"
"Irrelevent." Grumbled Five as he took his sister's coffee cup and began to gulp it down.
They all watched in confusion and awe as Five slurped on the coffee. When he needed to take a breath, he turned around to face his adoptive siblings, panting and looking very disheveled.
"So, the apocalypse is in three days. The only chance we have to save the world is, well, us."
"The Umbrella Academy." Luther said.
"Yeah, but with me, obviously. And (Y/n), of course, once she gets back. So if y'all don't get your sideshow acts together and get over yourselves, we're screwed. Who cares if Dad messed us up? Are we gonna let that define us? No. And to give us a fighting chance to see next week, I've come back with a lead." Five proclaimed as he raised up a folded piece of paper.
"I know who's responsible for the apocalypse. This is who we have to stop."
He handed it over to Allison who opened it for everyone to read. All it read were four simple words:
REASSIGNMENT: PROTECT HAROLD JENKINS.
"Harold Jenkins?"
"Who the hell is Harold Jenkins?" Diego questioned.
They all looked over to Five expectantly for the answer but all he did was finish the rest of his drink, throwing it off to the side once it was done.
"Wait," Klaus spoke up. "Where's (Y/n)?"
Right at that moment, a similar flash of lighting and electricity crackling sounded above them. As quickly as it came, it vanished and down came flying a body that crashed onto the floor in the middle of all of them. Seeing her familiar blue dress pants and white polo shirt, Five bent down to help the figure up.
She winced as she forced herself to sit up, her backside in pain and probably bruising. She saw the worried yet confused faces of her adoptive family and gave them a tired smile.
"What'd I miss?"
❤︎
A/N: Hey loves! Woo! You guys got an earlier chapter than I expected to get out. I go back to school tomorrow so I really wanted to get this chapter out and finish this episode before then and I'm glad I was able to get it out now. It's a bit shorter only because there wasn't much left of the episode but now that we're back with the fam, we finna get much longer chapters.
All the support and love you guys have been giving me is incredible! We're almost to 15K already?! That's insane ahhh! You all are amazing and I luv ya. And don't worry, we'll be seeing more of Alastair in the future, I love him too much to let him go.
If any of you guys have some tips on writing or how I can improve, please comment or even separately DM me. Anyway, please vote and comment! Stay safe, wear your masks and wash your hands!