Work Text:
Five's head feels fuzzy when he comes to. His senses return to him one by one: the heaviness of his eyelids, the smooth feel of a loose blanket pulled over him.
A throbbing ache somewhere in his body.
The quiet.
He opens his eyes and realizes he's in his bedroom. Alone.
Something's wrong.
Still laying down, he looks at the slanted ceiling and forces himself to backtrack. The probability map he drew a few days ago comes into focus.
Vaguely, he remembers going back to the Commission. Talking with the Handler. And then he left.
Yes, that was right.
He came home. He talked to his siblings, talked sense into them. Allison and Diego went with him into town. They went to the Police Station. Allison made a phone call. Diego came back with a legal file.
It was important. They got in the car. The tab on the side read Harold Jenkins.
Jenkins.
The mark.
"Shit!"
It all comes back. The house, the two names, collapsing on the floor.
The fact that that's the last thing he remembers means he must have blacked out.
"No-"
He bolts upright, but hisses at the sudden searing pain in his abdomen. With unusually shaky fingers, he pulls back the bottom edge of his shirt to reveal a well-bandaged wound a couple inches above his right hip. Seeing it patched up should be a good thing, but it makes his stomach drop.
How long has he been here?
His eyes shoot towards the window, then to the clock on his wall.
"No!"
He's been out for over ten hours. That's ten hours he should have been using to save the world. Ten hours he's wasted.
They don't have time for this.
Despite how badly it hurts, Five pulls himself out of bed and up onto his feet. He's a bit disoriented, but there are more important matters than his comfort right now.
He calls out as soon as he steps out of his room.
"Hey!" he shouts as he starts unevenly down the hallway, trying to get someone's attention, "I'm awake!"
This announcement is met with no answer, which agitates him further. They can't lose their edge; they need to get out and find Jenkins now.
He grabs onto the railing of the gallery and looks down into the foyer.
"Diego," he says loudly, "Allison!"
Still no reply. But this can't be right, the house can't be empty. Maybe he needs to try again.
He starts along the far edge of the bannister, hobbling slightly from the way he's holding himself up.
"Hey! Come on!"
"Number Five?"
He turns around, but it's only Grace. She sets down her needlepoint and stands up from her seat on her sectional, a look of concern on her face.
"What are you doing out of bed?"
Five ignores her question. What did it look like he was doing?
"Where's Diego and Allison?" he asks instead, "we've gotta go."
"I'm afraid your brother and sister have already gone," she says, "they left earlier this evening at approximately seven-fifty-three p.m."
It takes Five's overworked brain a couple of seconds to process this.
"They left without me?"
Disjointed feelings of panic, anger, and confusion rise up inside him.
Grace seems to be able to tell.
"You were unconscious, dear. You need to rest."
She says it so calmly that it's almost infuriating.
"No," he says to her as though she had been talking crazy, "I need to go with them. They need me out there."
Anxiety creeps into his chest. This is bad. This is not how things were supposed to go. He needs to get out there.
Grace gives him a patient smile that makes everything worse.
"You've already been administered with standard dose of Morphine Sulfate. Protocol dictates that you get at least twenty-four hours' bedrest before anything else."
"Yeah, I don't have twenty-four hours," he snaps, "the world's ending in two days!"
His mind's going a million miles a minute, trying to organize a coherent plan of action.
"Did they say where they were going?"
Grace purses her lips.
"I believe they said something about the home of an extended family member down in Jackpine, but-"
"They got an address?"
He can work with this.
"Yes," Grace cuts in quickly, "but Number Five, I'm afraid there isn't any way for you to join them. The best thing you can do right now is try and get some sleep."
She doesn't understand. Of course. Five shakes his head, turns back to go down the stairs.
"I have to go find them."
Nevermind the facts that they had taken the only functional car and that getting a cab all the way to Jackpine was next to impossible - he needed to go. He'd figure something out.
He stumbles on the first couple of steps and grips onto railing to stay upright. Maybe the drugs Grace had given him were a bit stronger than he'd realized.
Having followed him over here, she steps down to his level and takes him by the arm.
"I don't think you're in any state to be leaving the house," she says, her voice painfully cheerful, "maybe tomorrow, after you've had your rest."
She starts to show him back to his bedroom. He's in no position to be fighting her on it, but he just can't afford to rest.
"No, you don't get it," he says loudly, trying to wriggle away from her, "this isn't some stupid game or a mission like when we were kids - this is serious! They need me!"
Grace's face softens, but she doesn't let go.
"Your work is very important, but I'm sure Diego and Allison will still need you just as much in the morning."
Up until this point, her insistence has only served to frustrate him. Now, he's getting outright desperate.
"Mom- please-" his voice gets higher as he realizes he's fighting a losing battle - "please, I can't just sit here and do nothing!"
He's yelling now, but for some reason his feet are making him follow Grace. He feels dizzy and hot all over, like something terrible may happen if he doesn't leave right now.
Because it will.
"But you've been so busy all week long," says Grace, noticing his distress and stopping right inside the doorway of his room, "I think it's alright to do nothing for one night. You've done so much already."
These are the words that send him over the edge.
"But I haven't," he chokes, unable to hold it together any longer, "I haven't done shit! We barely made a dent to begin with and now I can't even do anything!"
He can't help it - he starts to cry. Blame the painkillers or the impending apocalypse or how powerless he feels. It comes out in jagged half-sobs as he tries to turn away from Grace.
"Oh, darling-"
She reaches out and touches her hand to his cheek. He flinches on reflex, ashamed of acting so weak. He closes his eyes, trying to get ahold of himself. Grace frowns.
"Here, come along, now," she says softly, "you're getting worked up. Let's just sit down, okay?"
Five doesn't say anything, only dissolves into a series of heavy, labored breathes as Grace shows him to the bed.
He lowers himself clumsily onto the edge and puts his head in his hands. Grace sits down beside him and touches his lower back.
"It's not good for you to be worrying yourself while you're recovering. It only increases the discomfort you're already feeling."
Five rubs his temples. His eyes are still wet and his head is still staticky.
Logically, he knows that Grace is right, but there's some part of him that won't let him let this go.
"But- but-"
It's a part of him that was clearly hit hard by the Morphine, because it fails to form any clear argument. His sudden inability to talk his way out of this upsets him even further, and a new, angry sob hitches in his throat.
"It's alright, dear," says Grace gently, moving her hand from his back and pulling his whole upper-half closer to her.
He lets her put her arms around him as his head falls to one side, resting on the side of her shoulder.
This isn't what he should be doing when the world's about to end, but he's tired and lethargic and it's been so long - almost a lifetime - since someone's touched him like this.
"That's better. There we go."
Five just sits there, breathing in and out, letting her stroke up and down his arm. His exhaustion is starting to overtake his guilt.
"Funny," Grace remarks absently, "you never did like to be held as a little boy. Do you remember that?"
"Yeah," he whispers.
He remembers a lot of things about himself that he wishes he didn't. Pushing away from her and everyone else when things went wrong. Yelling when they asked him to just be reasonable. Angry tears shed only behind locked doors.
He'd been so stupid.
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, there's no need for that," she says easily, "you were just so independent is all. Clever. "
She hums, still rubbing his arm slow and steady.
"I always knew you were going to do great things, Number Five."
He snorts sadly under his breath, tries not to think about the past couple of days. Blowing up a building, almost getting himself killed. Great things indeed. He doesn't correct her.
Instead, he lets her kiss his hair and tuck him back into bed like she must have before.
His breathing evens out as she pulls the wrinkled blankets up to his chest.
"Stay put this time, okay?" she asks teasingly, "you'll feel much better when you wake up."
"Okay," he says quietly, though he doesn't believe it.
He hasn't felt right in decades. He won't really be able to rest until he's certain they'll all be safe.
But right now, his body is weighed down with fatigue and he doesn't have the heart to tell Grace her faith is misplaced. He swallows.
"Goodnight, Mom."
She flashes him a soft smile before getting up to leave.
"Goodnight, dear."
It's their first goodnight in a long, long while.
As Five watches Grace walk away, he makes a silent promise to her that it won't be the last.