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Lila planted a kiss on Diego’s cheek, shut the door, and waddled back to the lounge. It was only 6pm, and she was already exhausted. Perks of being heavily pregnant, she guessed.
Being left alone at night? That was a perk of having an adrenaline junkie for a boyfriend. Still, Diego had found a half decent outlet for his need for action, starting his training to become a paramedic. It had been a strange shift in mentality for both of them, no longer causing harm, but treating it. Not that Lila was doing either. Instead, she was stuck at home, incubating their little devil. God, she couldn’t wait to give birth to the brat, if only so she could put it down for a minute.
She also couldn’t wait to meet her daughter. Lila was not a patient person, and nine months was an awfully long time. A long time to spend hours at home, all alone.
Five walked into the lounge, notebook in one hand, coffee in the other.
Not quite alone, then.
Not long after the momentous Hargreeves dispersal, Diego and Lila had been wandering the streets, unsure of what to actually do next. It was all well and good saying they were going to live their lives, but they had no money, no ID, nowhere to even sleep for the night.
An hour later, they ran into Five, being questioned by a cop. Diego, unable to walk by (even though Lila so wished he would) had stopped. He’d reassured the cop that this was his little brother. That they would absolutely take him home straight away, and ensure he wasn’t running around the streets at night again. Five had looked apoplectic the whole time, but afterwards he’d stuck around with the two of them.
And he’d stuck around since. When they’d realised they had no proof of ID in this strange new world, Five had helped them procure fake birth certificates. He’d spent days hounding the DMV phone line till they’d ‘admitted their mistake’ and found the records for Mr and Mrs Hardy (after all, Hargreeves probably wasn’t the most sensible of surnames in this brave new world.) Five hadn’t even complained when he’d been registered as Diego’s 15-year-old cousin. Although, he had no intention of attending his new high school in the fall.
Five had just, stayed. Lila couldn’t say she hated it, even if she really wanted to. Sometimes it was even nice to have him around.
Diego was such a moral creature. As chaotic as her, sure. But he’d never understand why Lila’s first thought at a minor inconvenience was to turn to murder. He’d never understand The Commission, the life of a contract killer, her mum.
Five understood. Five understood a little too well, but it was strangely reassuring to know there was someone else who got it. All three of them were learning how to live again after a lifetime of violence, but Lila had never lived in a single decade of history for more than a few months, and Five had spent more time in a wasteland than he ever had around people. This domestic life, this normal life? It was all completely new for the two of them. New, and a little bit scary.
So no matter how much Lila tried to remind herself that he was an arsehole. A delinquent little turd who murdered her parents and would have happily killed her too just a few months ago, she was kind of glad he was here.
The two of them sat in companionable silence. Five alternating between staring into space, sipping his coffee and scribbling in his notebook. Lila flicking through one of the many parenting books Diego had stacked up around the house. For several hours, neither of them said a single word. At some point, Five replaced his coffee with a glass of whisky. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking anymore, Diego had started a whole new kick – trying to get everything perfect for when the baby arrived, but Lila didn’t say anything. At midnight, the two of them gave up on the day, both heading to bed.
Five had the rest of the bottle of whisky in his hand. Lila still didn’t say anything.
Lila woke with a start, shooting up in the bed and gripping her stomach, her mother on her mind. The footage from the infinite switchboard mixing with her memories until she could almost feel the bullets making their way through her body, feel herself being murdered by her own mum.
Breathing heavily, the thoughts started to drift, and reality began to assert itself. Lila suddenly realised it hadn’t been the nightmare that had her startling awake. There was a noise coming from the end of the hallway.
A scream.
Lila froze, she knew who it was. She knew exactly what was going on. She’d been lucky so far that most of Five’s nightmares had occurred when Diego was around. The few nights where he hadn’t been, she had thrown a pillow over her head and done her best to block out the cries of anguish. To convince herself that he deserved it, the killer.
But she was a killer too, and Lila couldn’t help but think back to the half empty bottle of booze that had made it to his bedroom tonight. The blank stares between each bout furious scribbling in his notebook.
Lila made her way out of bed, pulling on her dressing gown, and padded barefoot across to Five’s room. The door was shut, but she eased it open, any creaking drowned out by the noises Five was making. Leaning against the door, she looked over to the bed. Five was caught in the sheets, still moaning and writhing. Lila thought she heard a whispered “no.” entangled in the rest of the noise.
Tentatively, she approached the bed, reaching out to press on his shoulder. She shook it lightly, but there was no response. He was still entwined in whatever horror was haunting him. Lila shook him again, much harder this time.
Five shot up. He flew out of bed at great speed, and Lila found herself bowled over onto her back, landing on the bedroom floor. Five was leaning over her, panting. A kitchen knife was pressed to her throat. Lila blinked, surprised at her change in orientation, before she pushed him off, scrabbling away as quickly as she could.
“What the hell was that, you little shit?” Lila shouted.
Five looked up, a confused expression on his face. Slowly, it morphed into something else. Something full of terror and guilt. He put the knife down on the ground, and pulled himself back up onto the bed, his eyes not leaving the knife. After a moment, he sighed, then he spoke.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Well that much was obvious. It’s been, what, seven months since we last tried to kill each other?”
Five’s lip quirked.
“Six and a half. Don’t forget the Walmart incident.” He replied. He was no longer panting, but he had yet to uncurl from the ball he’d made at the foot of his bed.
He looked tired. The bags under his eyes could carry a week’s worth of shopping, and Lila could see sweat on his face, illuminated by the streetlights outside the window. Lila often poked fun at his small stature, his youthful look. Tonight she could see every one of his fifty-nine years.
Lila walked over to the bed, moving slowly with a hand on her stomach. With a small groan, she deposited herself at the head of the bed. Five looked at her with abject horror.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He said, “Seriously Lila, I’m not in the mood for jokes right now.”
“Do you see me making one? I’m pregnant. Lila Jr. is heavy. I’m sitting down.”
“Lila Jr.?” Five questioned, “If Diego doesn’t insist on calling the girl ‘Grace’ I’ll eat my hat.”
“You don’t own a hat.”
“I’ll buy one.” Five countered.
Lila raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll steal one.”
“That’s more like it, tiny klepto man.” Lila grinned. “Now, before I really regret this. Do you want to talk about it?”
Five’s face was moving back to horror.
“Lila. I killed your parents. You hate me. We established that a long time back. Why the fuck are you suggesting we start being all fuzzy, get our ‘kum-ba-yayas’ out?” Five narrowed his eyes. “Is there something wrong? Is there something wrong with the baby?”
Lila laughed. He was doing his best to seem intimidating right now, but with his pyjamas, sleep-mussed hair, and obvious concern for his unborn niece, it wasn’t even close to convincing.
“The bun is cooking just fine, thank you very much. I was just trying to be… nice. I don’t know, Five. Forget I even said it.”
With that, she started to get up from the bed.
“It was her. The Handler.”
Lila sat back down, closing her eyes and bracing herself. This wasn’t going to be fun.
“What happened?” she asked, voice quiet.
“The usual.” Five replied, “She knew what she wanted. She knew how to get it, so she took it. She took whatever she wanted.”
Lila winced. Her mum had always been manipulative, but she hadn’t truly seen that cold side of her until their last few months together. She had happily ignored it, convincing herself that every one of her mother’s actions were justified. After all, that was the truth she’d been raised with.
She also hadn’t known about every action her mother had taken.
“Mum said that you and her had a ‘colourful history’. What did she mean?” Lila asked, scared of the can of worms she was currently opening. She didn’t want to know the answer, but Five was clearly hurting. Lila had to at least try and help. She owed this to Diego, if nothing else.
“You know, she was the one that pulled me out of the apocalypse. I’d been there for forty years.” Five sighed.
“Surviving was unbelievably hard. It took me twenty-five to get a fully functioning farm. The ground was fertile. All those corpses, they were good for something at least. But the weather? It was too unpredictable. Months of acidic rain, days on end of unrelenting heat. The winters, God, I couldn’t count the number of times I just wished it would all be over, so I never had to be cold again. Everything was unpredictable, every day was a gamble, but I’d got pretty good at it all in the end. Eking out an existence in the ruins of the world, because I had no other choice.”
Five paused, running a hand through his hair. He was still sweating, but his trembling hands were beginning to calm.
“Then she appeared. I just assumed I was hallucinating. I started seeing things about two months in, so I was pretty used to it by that point.”
Wow. Lila hadn’t known that.
“Do you still hallucinate now?” she asked.
“Sometimes.” He admitted. “I don’t notice most of the time. I’ve been tuning them out for longer than you’ve been alive.”
He paused, before continuing.
“She stood and she talked, and I listened, vaguely, but I really did think it was just my brain playing tricks on me. A whole organisation, able to do the one thing I’d been trying to achieve for my entire existence, and they’d been watching me since the minute I’d arrived in that shit-hole. They’d known I was there, alone, and they’d left me there.”
Five looked up, staring Lila directly in the eyes.
“They left me there, Lila. I was thirteen years old.”
Lila knew that, and she knew the organisation hadn’t cared. It hadn’t been forty years for them. Maybe a couple of years at the most, time didn’t make sense at The Commission.
Everyone had known of the little boy at the end of the world. It was one of the channels staff could tune into when they were bored. There was even a betting pool. Dave from accounting had made a killing. Five had been water-cooler chat, the equivalent of Saturday night entertainment. Lila had been about seventeen when he’d popped up on the radar, she’d spent hours watching his fight for survival, cheering him on from her bedroom. But when she’d got bored, she’d turned him off. Found something else to watch.
All that time alone, and she’d watched him like a truly fucked-up reality show.
“So,” Five continued, unaware of Lila’s internal anguish, “I said yes to her deal, and it was only when I shook her hand I realized it was all real. That I’d just agreed to five years of service, a killer for hire, but it also meant that the whole time-travel thing was real. I knew if I bided my time, kept my record clear, I could use The Commission to my advantage. I could get home. I completed all the training in record time. I kept my head down, but made sure to outperform everyone else. I needed everyone to think I was exactly what The Commission had been waiting for, the perfect assassin, who was just grateful to be out of hell. Everyone was pleased, and everyone left me alone, except—"
“My mother.”
“Your mother. She rose through the ranks on the back of my achievement, I was her golden goose. So she made sure to remind everyone that I was hers . Her achievement. Her pet. Every stop at headquarters was punctuated with a visit from her. I spent more time in her office than any other employee. I’m sure it was the talk of the town.”
“Everyone thought you were fucking” Lila interrupted, not really thinking.
“We were.”
Oh shit. Lila hadn’t expected that answer, like, at all. It had been office gossip, a joke about a terrifying superior. Obviously, no-one had ever said it to her, too scared of the consequences, but Lila had known all about the rumor mill. Still, she’d never thought there’d be any truth to that particular theory.
“Oh.” She replied, before adding “Ew.”
Five snorted. “Believe me, I agree.”
“Hey!” Lila shouted, “Don’t say that about my mother!”
Five raised an eyebrow, just a little.
“I am going to remind you, Lila, that your mom murdered you the minute you were no longer useful to her. I’m not going to feel too guilty about considering her less-than-consensual advances gross.”
It was Lila’s turn to stare at Five in abject horror.
“She-she. No. No way.” she whispered, voice barely audible.
What the hell? This was her mother Five was on about. A politician, yes. Someone who would do anything to get power, maybe. Not that, though. No. Not that. Right?
Lila then thought back to that awful final week or so in Dallas. The way her mother had invaded Five’s personal space at every opportunity. The way the unshakeable man had been tense and uncomfortable each time.
“I don’t know.” Five admitted, “I don’t know what it was. I was thirteen when I was stranded, and at that point I had greater things to focus on, I never really thought about—” Five waved his arms about in front of him “—any of that. I don’t know what it was, not really.”
He paused, taking a deep breath.
“But, whatever it was, I didn’t want it. She had the power, and I needed to get home. Save your boyfriend, save all of them. I didn’t have a choice.”
He had tears in his eyes now. Lila had never seen Five cry. Not on the television when she was younger, not in real life. Never.
“I haven’t had a choice for so long, Lila. I don’t even remember what it feels like.”
Lila didn’t know what to say. It’s not like she could come out with ‘I’m sorry my mum emotionally manipulated you and sexually assaulted you’. It felt a little tactless. Still, it was all that she could think of.
Mum had been… something. Lila had been the favored one for so long, she’d never really seen the worst of it, but she could still think back to each time something demeaning had been said. How Lila had eaten out of her mother’s hand, begging for the scraps of affirmation her mother had been willing to provide.
Her mother had killed her, and Five had saved her life. What do you say to that man? How do you respond to someone admitting to half a century of devastation, all of it squashed into the wrong body, one too young and too innocent to have experienced such a life?
Lila didn’t know the answer.
“Come on, you little shit. We need greasy all-night diner food. Waffles or pancakes. Your choice.”
Five smiled, the first smile she’d seen all night that actually reached his eyes. Lila smiled back as he pulled himself off the bed and towards his closet.
“Well hurry up and waddle out of here. I’m getting dressed, you pervert.” He said, characteristic annoyance back in place.
Lila laughed, pulling herself off the bed and out of the room. They hadn’t fixed anything tonight, but they were both alive, they were both smiling, and they were going to get waffles. That would have to do for now.
(Five was predictable, he’d choose waffles.)