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A few hours, that’s all they had asked for. A few hours to rest, eat something, and say their goodbyes to the people that they’ve loved during the time that they had spent in Dallas.
They were exhausted after the battle and everyone was a little worse for wear after everything that had happened and what they knew was to come. Some time to rest would be nice so that they’d be prepared for whatever was next, or whatever went wrong next.
Five blew it out of proportion like he always did. He wanted to get them home as soon as possible, but it wasn’t like a few hours would suddenly cause the end of the world again. Not when some of them had been here for three years already.
That argument was less than ideal to have in front of Sissy and Harlan, but Five was never one to wait until they were alone to fight.
He only gave in when his voice finally broke and he could barely get a word in from how hard he was panting. Vanya caught him before he dropped and he immediately jerked away, mumbling about if they weren’t ready by sundown he’d leave them all here. Then he stalked off to peruse among the field of bodies for a working briefcase.
They knew his threats were empty, but still, they had until sundown. That was about as far as they would dare push Five, especially after the crap shoot that all his other attempts at getting him home had turned out to be.
In the meantime, Vanya helped Sissy with putting together some food , even though the kitchen was pretty much destroyed, there was still food, and it was still edible. They did what they could, helped clean up where they were able , and the boys took care of a few ex-husband issues out in the backyard.
“Shouldn’t one of you go check up on your little brother?” Sissy asked Vanya tentatively, a hand placed on her upper arm. She glanced out into the field where they could barely see the top of Five’s head poking up. He was knelt on the ground, fiddling with one of the many, many briefcases.
Apparently, that one didn’t work. He made a frustrated gesture and tossed it aside, not making any move to get up for a few long moments. Then he got up, moved to another briefcase, and dropped to the ground like a limp puppet to check if it worked.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Vanya muttered, although there was something off about him since the altercation in the barn. “He needs some time to blow off steam, I'm sure.”
“But shouldn’t one of y’all be out there helping him?” Sissy placed a hand to her chin, furrowing her eyebrows as she watched Five. “He shouldn’t be doing… whatever it is that he’s doing all by himself .”
“He’ll be alright,” Vanya reassured her. “I think he’d just bite our heads off if we tried to help.”
Sissy didn’t seem convinced, but she just sighed and nodded sadly. “You better call him in here when we’re finished so he can eat.”
“We’ll have to send out reinforcements for that,” Vanya tried to joke, although it didn’t land for Sissy, who just looked at her with a sad worried smile.
Vanya made a peanut butter sandwich specifically for Five. She didn’t know if he’d actually eat much else , he hadn’t been very picky since he got back, not like when they were kids, but she also hadn’t seen him eat very much in the first place.
Once they were all settled, sandwiches and some fresh produce that had to be eaten before it went bad, they realized Five still hadn’t come in from outside.
Sissy offered to go call him in, but the others quickly shot her down. Five was already exhausted, and Sissy was already stressed. They didn’t want her going directly into the angry bear den.
Vanya went out to grab him, the sun already beginning to paint the sky pink with nightfall. It was just another reminder of the little time they had left in this year, and that soon they would all be going back home . A pang of grief hit Vanya hard, but she shoved it down as far and deep as it would possibly go.
She found Five sitting on the damp grass, snow mostly melted by now, but there were still clumps of it here and there. His shorts and the bottom of his shirt were soaked through, and he was visibly shivering, although Vanya wasn’t sure that he noticed.
Even though they hadn’t been there that long, Vanya couldn’t help but recoil in disgust a little at the army of corpses, even though she had been the cause.
Five was sitting right next to a dead body, which couldn’t have been remotely comfortable, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. Five wasn’t a stranger to dead bodies , she was sure that he had seen many throughout his life. That didn’t make it any better.
He had a briefcase cradled in his lap, arms wrapped around the thick leather casing, fingers splayed loosely across the surface of it. His chin was resting on the top part of it , shoulders hunched and sagging under the weight of the exhaustion he carried like it was his job.
There was blood staining his hands, and his clothes were rumpled and filthy, bits of straw clinging to the back of his shoulders, dirt and dust smudging his face. It was getting harder to see now, but she was sure that there was blood on his clothes as well.
“Hey,” Vanya said softly, not wanting to startle him. As it was, she saw him clutch the briefcase tighter, shoulders squaring as he sat up straight.
“What now?” He snapped, voice so hoarse it lost the bite of his angry words. Vanya did her best not to look too concerned, it would just set him off again.
“You should come eat something , dinner’s ready,” Vanya explained, shivering in the remnants of Harlan’s snowstorm. She really should have grabbed her jacket. And Five was sitting out here in shorts and the old academy blazer, which really didn’t do much in terms of warmth. No wonder he was shivering, although he didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m fine,” Five muttered, no longer looking at Vanya. He frowned slightly and a large shiver rolled down his spine. He hugged the briefcase to his chest tighter.
“You should at least come inside , did you find a briefcase that works?” Vanya asked tentatively , they had gotten snapped at before whenever they said the wrong thing about the briefcases, especially earlier when Five was particularly touchy. She shifted her weight from foot to foot , both to give her something to do and to warm herself up.
“Yes.”
“Good, you can come inside now,” Vanya insisted, “No use sitting outside in the cold.”
Five looked up at her through heavy-lidded eyes. She couldn’t tell if he had gotten punched in the face, or if his eye bags were just that dark. His forehead had stopped bleeding, but the clotted blood still looked as nasty as it had when it was fresh.
“You go on ahead, I’ll be there in a minute,” Five then tried, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture , the first time so far that Vanya had seen him even take a single hand off the briefcase.
Unfortunately for Five, he had used this trick one too many times to get out of situations he didn’t want to be in.
“Here, let me help you up,” Vanya held out her hand, smiling innocently as if she hadn’t immediately caught onto his bluff. Five let the surprise wash off his face as soon as it appeared, he sighed but took her hand.
His hands were freezing, clammy with cold, and still covered in blood. Vanya squeezed his hand all the same and yanked him hard, pulling him up to his feet with less grace than she wanted.
Five stumbled forward, almost crashing into Vanya as he tripped over the briefcase. It must have been heavier than he expected because it took a few tries for him to lug it up into his arms like he had been doing with it in his lap. Vanya would have offered to take it from him, clearly, he was doing a lot worse than she had, but the glare that he shot her way stopped her in her tracks.
He stalked off toward the house, limping a little and holding the briefcase in both hands. Vanya followed a few steps behind, not wanting to rush him as he clearly didn’t take the past few hours to rest at all . Typical Five.
Inside, Five kept the briefcase close, tucking it underneath his legs as he sat at the dining table, one calf pressed tight against the leather surface while it was braced against the chair leg. He ate, albeit not much, mostly choosing to pick at the bread and some of the peanut butter from the sandwich Vanya had made for him.
He had finished about a quarter of the sandwich by the time everyone else was done. And once everyone else left the table, he got up as well , still holding onto the briefcase like his life depended on it. Well, all their lives did depend on it. But it wasn’t like there was anyone else that would come steal it anymore. Everyone out in the field was dead, and the commission definitely didn’t have enough people to go after them again.
Sissy told Vanya that she would finish cleaning up, although there was no point since she and Harlan would be leaving by daybreak and the rest of the house was already trashed. It was more of a habit than anything else, one last grasp at normalcy before her life and everything she had built it on crumbled to ash around her.
Vanya kissed her cheek and went outside where the rest of the family were gathered in discussion , a promise on her lips to return one last time right before they left to say goodbye. Sissy just smiled at her through the window, a heavy heart weighing in her chest, and a sink full of dishes to wash.
That’s also how Sissy found herself alone in the kitchen with what appeared to be Vanya’s youngest brother. His presence had startled her at first, he didn’t seem to be the type to linger in one place for too long, and she could have sworn that she saw him outside with the others.
His gaze was unsettling as it passed over her, narrow eyes dark with exhaustion, but intense in a way that Sissy had never seen a child his age hold. He swayed on his feet, dark hair falling in greasy clumped strands over his bloodied forehead. And strangely of all, he was still holding onto one of those briefcases that he had pulled from the field of corpses , Sissy shuddered at the thought. She didn’t fully understand the purpose of them , but she had to assume that it was important .
All in all, Sissy didn’t know what to think of the boy. He didn’t look much older than Harlan, baby fat still on his cheeks and everything . But there was something about the way he looked at her that set her on edge.
She could hardly believe that they’d let their youngest brother get involved the way he had, the fighting, the arguing, the complicated time travel that Sissy still didn’t fully understand. However, something told her by the way that he interacted (the way he argued) with the others, that he probably knew more than he let on.
That didn’t mean that Sissy liked to see a boy like him hurt. Especially by the way he was swaying on his feet like he was about to keel over. Didn’t they have that whole argument earlier about staying here a few more hours to rest , why hadn’t they let him rest? Someone else should have been out searching the field of corpses instead of him.
As she took her place in front of the sink, running the hot water until it was halfway to the top, the boy was still staring at her as if he were waiting for something.
Sissy was about to say something, but then he seemed to come to some conclusion in his head and instead stalked past her to the counter, briefcase in hand, and began fiddling with the coffee pot.
That surprised Sissy more than anything else. And for that, she couldn’t help the next words that came out of her mouth.
“You probably shouldn’t be drinking coffee at your age,” Sissy told him, not sure why she had even thought to say something in the first place. This boy didn’t really seem to care about what was appropriate to be doing for a kid like him. But still, she was a mother after all, and even if his siblings weren’t all that concerned about him, someone had to be.
The boy looked at her through tired eyes and scoffed, actually scoffed at her.
“There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t have been doing at my age,” The boy muttered, leaning his elbows on the counter with a heavy sigh. Something about the way he said that brought a bad taste in Sissy's mouth. He pressed the briefcase into the counter with the front of his shins and almost leaned against it. Something about the way he said that made her pause and look at him curiously , really look at him.
There were years of age behind his eyes. Heavy years that Sissy had never seen in another person before. But before that, there was also exhaustion, so much more than she ever thought possible for someone like him. She didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand any of this.
Sissy probably never would understand it.
Sissy just took the coffee pot from him and filled it in the sink, placing it on the stove to heat up. The boy relaxed a little, still watching her like a predator preparing for his next meal, but some of the tension had drained from his shoulders. She tried not to stare at him too hard, although it was hard not to when she didn’t understand a single thing about him.
He was so young, and yet his family treated him as if he were older. He fought and argued and held himself as if there were years under his belt that Sissy probably haven’t even seen yet. He was clearly exhausted, but his siblings didn’t seem to share the same concern that Sissy felt welling in the back of her throat. Maybe it was because she was a mother. Maybe it was because she couldn’t help but see a boy like Harlan in the face of the kid in front of her.
They were all much too used to their younger brother.
She tried to remember what Vanya had told her when she introduced Sissy to all of her siblings once things had calmed down. There had been a lot going on and Sissy hadn’t been paying attention as much as she should have to all their names.
What was his name? There had been so many names that she really only remembered a couple of them . She felt bad that she didn’t know.
“I don’t think Vanya introduced me to you,” Sissy said absently, hoping that it came across as casual. Technically, this was the first time they had spoken since the boy had pretty much immediately run off as soon as the battle was over. He didn’t take any time to talk to Sissy like the others had.
“You’re Sissy,” the boy said, leaning his shoulders over the counter as he braced himself on his forearms. Sissy shifted her weight from foot to foot and glanced over at the dining room chairs.
“Yes,” Sissy nodded, trying not to show her unease at how he knew her name so quickly. They had never spoken before, although they had probably been in close enough proximity for him to figure it out. How had she not gotten his name?
Maybe the boy saw her internal turmoil and took pity on her, or maybe he was just continuing the conversation normally.
“Five,” he said with a sigh, slicking his messy bangs away from his face with shaking hands.
“Your name is Five?” Sissy asked, confused. Maybe this is why she didn’t remember what Vanya had told her, although she should have picked up on that.
“Number Five if you want to be exact,” he smiled as he said it, smug in the way he spoke, as if this were funny to him. Sissy’s eyes widened.
What kind of parents did these people have? Sissy was sure that the rest of the family had pretty normal names, maybe not typically common ones, but at least they were human names, not the name of some kind of experimental specimen.
“That’s no name for a boy like you,” Sissy tried, unable to hide the shock from her voice.
“Yeah, but it’s mine,” Five narrowed his eyes at her and pushed himself up straight, stumbling a few paces closer like he was trying to get up in her face. “And it’s the one thing that’s stayed mine.”
Sissy backed away, suddenly afraid of what this boy could do to her. She hadn’t seen much of the battle before, but if he had come out of the battle with that many people only a bit worse for wear, she didn’t want to know what he might do.
Five backed down, looking away and staring longingly at the pot of coffee as it heated.
“How much did Vanya tell you?” Five then asked, not looking at Sissy.
“Not much,” Sissy admitted, wringing her hands together as she went to finish making the coffee, “Told me that you all were from the future… and that’s where you’re going back to now, right? Back to where you’re from?”
Five nodded, “2019,” He watched her closely as she poured two cups of coffee into chipped mugs. “Did she tell you about me?”
“No,” Sissy admitted, “Just mentioned some brothers and a sister…” She paused and looked at Five with her eyebrows furrowed, worry seeping into her gaze. “Didn’t tell me about you being so young.”
Five scoffed at that as he accepted the cup of coffee that Sissy offered him. “I’m older than you think. Older than you probably .”
Sissy must have made some kind of face because Five laughed, actually laughed at her. It was choked and a little hoarse, but the crinkle of a smile on his face made Sissy look away. He leaned against the counter and took a sip of hot coffee, barely pausing to wait for it to cool.
“I’m from a future much farther than the others,” Five told her once he had finished laughing. He smiled, although it didn’t reach his eyes.
She wanted to ask. She wanted more answers. Five would probably give her more answers than Vanya ever would, although part of Sissy didn’t want to know. There were so many questions that it was impossible to ask all of them.
And there were things that Sissy wasn’t sure she even wanted to know about either.
“In any case,” Five waved his hand dismissively, easing a little with every sip he took of the coffee , Sissy found herself still holding onto her mug numbly without taking a sip. “You’re still young and have got a long life ahead of you. Enjoy it. Even if it’s not what you had in mind, it rarely ever is.”
“What about you?” Sissy asked, shaking her head in disbelief at what Five was telling her, “You’ve got so much more life to live than any of us here.”
Five’s face went dark. He looked away from her and said nothing for a few moments.
“I’ve lived my life already, and now my siblings get to live theirs, so that’s really all that matters to me,” Five said into his mug of coffee.
And what could Sissy even say to that? What could she possibly say that would mean anything to this kid in front of her, who seemed to have everything already settled in his mind? This wasn’t her business, nor was this even close to anything she was prepared to handle.
“I’m sure your life matters to them too ,” Sissy said tentatively, “When y’all get back to the future, keep yourselves safe.”
“You too,” Five nodded at her and then drank the rest of his coffee, perking up a little bit. “Enjoy the rest of your life.”
Sissy didn’t know what to say to that, so she muttered a quiet, “Thank you.”
And then Five was pushing himself away from the counter, heaving the briefcase into his arms like it weighed a million pounds. He shuffled to the back door, dragging one leg a little, and then he disappeared into the steadily darkening night.
Sissy watched him join the others and then watched Vanya run back inside to say goodbye. They hugged, Vanya was crying when she kissed her, and Sissy tasted the salty tears on her lips, although she couldn’t be sure whose tears they were.
Then all six of them were gone, with nothing more than memories as the only proof of their existence.