Archive of Our Own

Diego was in the menial process of making lunch when the landline phone on the other wall began to ring, the shrill noise cutting through the kitchen.  He winced at the noise, praying it didn’t wake the baby in the other room, Lila had just managed to get her down for a nap.

He set the knife down on the counter with a small clatter, shuffled over, and picked up the receiver with one hand, cradling it between the crook of his shoulder and his ear.  He mentally braced himself for what he expected to be one of his soon-to-be parents-in-law checking up on Lila.

“Hello?” Diego said into the phone, detangling himself from the spiraled cord as he moved back to his station in front of the stove.  He turned the dial on the burner to turn the heat down, poking at the grilled cheese sandwich on the pan with a spatula.

“Diego?” A familiar voice crackled through the speaker, far away and a little out of breath as if the person on the other end of the phone was standing far away from the actual receiver.  Diego furrowed his eyebrows and frowned slightly, the voice was just barely distorted by the bad reception of the call he couldn’t place who it was.

“Who is this?” Diego asked, putting on his gruff voice.  The only people who ever really called the apartment were Lila’s parents or people who wanted trouble.  Only occasionally did he get a call from Klaus or Viktor every once in a while.  But those were few and far between nowadays.  It was more reasonable for him to assume whoever was calling had bad intentions.

The person on the other line paused for a few seconds and then Diego heard them let out a breath, the sound crackling loudly over the phone.  The silence stretched a lot longer than Diego would have cared to let it.  But before he could say anything else the person responded.

“It’s Five.”

Diego felt something hot and heavy settle in the center of his chest.  A mix of emotions he couldn’t exactly begin to describe caused his throat to tighten.

No one had seen or heard from Five in over a year now.  They had begun to suspect that since now there was no apocalypse waiting to destroy the world, Five was gone and had left for good.  He had done what he had needed to do and now he could go live his life doing whatever he wanted without having to deal with his family anymore.  Diego wouldn’t lie and say that thought hadn’t stung.  But for Five, it wasn’t unreasonable.

“Jesus, Five?” Diego couldn’t hide the disbelief in his voice as his eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets in surprise.  “Where the hell have you been man?”

Among the emotions swirling in his chest, anger easily took root right at the back of his throat, lacing his words without him fully meaning to.

“Please, contain your excitement,” Five muttered from the other line, clearly going for a biting remark, but he only sounded tired.  He took a shaky breath and the line buzzed when he let it out.  Diego felt a pinch of worry.

“Where have you been?” Diego repeated, wanting answers to his questions for once.  If there was one thing Five was good at, it was not answering any questions.

“Look… Diego…” Five seemed to be struggling with the words, making a few aborted sounds that almost came out as words before he thought better of it.  He paused, let out another sigh, and began again. “I got picked up by the police yesterday… I need you to come get me.”

Diego blinked, “You got arrested?”  He flipped the grilled cheese sandwich, pressing it down with the flat part of the spatula, adjusting his hold on the telephone receiver.

“Yes,” Five bit out, clearly frustrated, “Can you come get me?”

“The hell did you do?” Diego asked in surprise, out of every brother he expected to call to be bailed out of jail, Five was not one of them.  As much as Five did, he had never gotten caught for anything before.  But that was when they still had their powers.  Diego’s shoulders deflated slightly and he sighed.

“Just… We can talk about it later…” Five made a noise halfway between a sigh and a growl.  If he were face to face with his brother, Diego could imagine the glare he would have on his face, along with the threats bubbling on the tip of his tongue.  Diego was surprised he hadn’t threatened violence yet, although he clearly wasn’t in the position for that. “Can you come get me or not?”

Well, it was either yes, or Five would probably sit in prison for a long time.  Though it depended on whatever he was in there for, which really, knowing Five, could be anything from breaking and entering to first-degree murder.  And as much as the kid probably deserved it, Diego wasn’t one to let his brother rot in jail.  He wouldn’t let any of his brothers do so.

“Yeah, yeah fine, I can come get you,” Diego sighed and shook his head a little bit, looking down the hall toward the closed bedroom door where Lila and Gracie were sleeping.  Lila was probably not going to be happy about this.  “Where are you?”

Five listed off the address and it took Diego a few minutes to realize the police station he had gotten grabbed at was over an hour’s drive.  He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay man, you’re lucky you’re my brother because you’re really giving me a run for gas money,” Diego muttered, flipping the grilled cheese onto the awaiting plate, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

For a few moments, Five said nothing and Diego was almost convinced the brat had hung up on him.  But then he heard him let out a breath, maybe one of relief, and then a quiet.  “Thank you.”

There was the sound of a clatter and then the line beeped and went dead, clearly signaling Five had hung up on him.  Diego sighed, dropped the phone back onto the hook on the wall, and turned the stove off.  He supposed his own lunch would have to wait.

He cut the grilled cheese sandwich in half before picking up the plate and bringing it down the hall to the bedroom.

Diego rapped his knuckles on the door lightly before entering, pushing the door open with his toes.  The room was dark, but with the little light from the hallway and the barely cracked blinds, he navigated over to the bed, doing his best not to bump into anything.

As soon as he entered the room, Diego felt a pair of piercing eyes lock onto his position.  He approached the bed to find Lila sitting up with her back pressed against the headboard, a small bundle of blankets that was their three-month-old daughter cradled in her arms.

“Who was on the phone?” Lila asked suspiciously, her voice barely above a whisper as she idly rocked the baby in her arms.

Diego sat the plate of grilled cheese down on the bedside table and sighed, stretching his shoulders.  “Five… Apparently, he got arrested and needs me to bail him out.”

“He just disappears for a year and then calls only for you to get him out of prison?” Lila asked incredulously as if she couldn’t believe what Diego was telling her.  “Are you serious?”

“Apparently… he wouldn’t lie about something like that,” Diego shrugged and shook his head.

“I say just leave him,” Lila rolled her eyes, “Whatever it is, he probably deserves it.”

“Yeah… well, he probably had a reason for calling me out of anyone else,” Diego muttered, “And I already said I’d come get him.”

“You should have consulted with me first, get a voice of reason before you start making commitments,” Lila just sighed, shaking her head in disbelief, “Help me get Gracie back in bed please.”

Wordlessly, Diego gently scooped up the small bundle of blankets that was his daughter, cradling her in his arms.  Lila hooked her fingers around the edge of the crib, pulling it closer to the bed so Diego could place Gracie down onto the soft plush mattress.  She gargled a bit in her sleep and pawed her hands beneath the swaddle, but other than that she thankfully continued to snooze peacefully.

“I’ll be back in a couple hours,” Diego told Lila, bending down to kiss her on the lips.

“A couple hours?” Lila huffed, grabbing the collar of Diego’s shirt and pulling him down into another kiss, “It’s not too late just to leave him there.”

“Take care of Gracie,” Diego wrenched himself out of her grasp, “And eat your lunch.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Mum,” Lila reached for the plate of grilled cheese on the side table.  “Be back soon.”

“I hopefully won't be too long,” Diego waved over his shoulder as he left the room, shutting the door softly behind him.

He took his coat from the hook by the door, along with the keys to his van, and was out the door not too long after Five had called.  Diego sighed, mentally preparing himself for the boring drive there and the most certainly grueling drive back.

Of course, Five happened to get arrested at the furthest police station that still managed to be in the same county.  Of course, he managed to call the one brother who was the furthest away to come get him (if Diego remembered correctly, he believed Luther was a lot closer to the station Five was being held at).  Of course he would disappear for a year without a single word and then reappear only to find out he had gotten arrested and needed one of them to bail him out.  

Typical of the Hargreeve’s family special in communication and keeping in contact.

Diego just didn’t like the sinking feeling in his stomach at the fact he had to actually bail Five out of something.  Normally the old man managed to weasel his way out of any situation given enough time.  It was his specialty.

Well, he wouldn’t know the full situation until he got to the police station.  Diego just sighed and pulled out of the parking space, easing his van onto the road with a grueling shudder.

The drive ended up being just over an hour long, thankfully there was little traffic at this time of day.  Diego would have been so much more pissed if he not only had to bail his brother out of jail but also had to sit in traffic as well.  

But soon enough, Diego pulled into the police station, the van sputtering a little bit with the strain Diego was putting it through.  He backed into a parking spot and killed the engine, staring at the front entrance with a tired glare, willing himself to have the energy to deal with this entire situation right now.

He sat there for a few seconds collecting his thoughts, rubbing the stumps of his missing fingers on his left hand with his palm.  Then he grabbed his keys and shoved open the door of his van, stepping outside into the cool fall air.

Diego wasn’t sure what he would see upon stepping through the doors of the police station.  He had no idea what his brother had been up to this past year and Five hadn’t really shared any helpful details.  He just had to sit and wonder while he approached the front desk, preparing himself for the argument that would certainly come from his ornery brother.

The woman sitting behind the computer at the desk looked up when Diego arrived, her tight-lipped forced polite smile and hair tied back in a high ponytail reminded him painfully of Eudora.  He shook those thoughts away, striding up to the counter confidently, but in a way he hoped didn’t seem threatening.  For some reason, Diego had an issue with that.

“Can I help you?” The lady behind the counter asked, pausing what she was doing for the moment to look at Diego with a polite expression.  She drummed her fingers on the counter just a few inches away from the keyboard, clearly bored, or impatient.

“I’m looking for my younger brother, he called earlier saying he was in custody here,” Diego explained, trying not to let his irritation seep through his words, this was not the way he expected his day to go. 

“What’s the name?” The lady said simply, turning her attention to her computer screen in front of her, fingertips ghosting across the thick keys.

Diego opened his mouth to respond and then blanked on the answer to that question.  Would Five have given his actual name to the police if he had been arrested?  It might bring up more questions than he wanted to deal with and cause unnecessary conflicts, especially in a timeline that didn’t know who they were or who they used to be.

Internally, Diego cursed Five for not giving him a little more information to work with here.

“Hargreeves is the last name,” Diego started, hoping that might get him somewhere useful. 

The lady quirked an eyebrow and Diego cursed their father for creating this new timeline and everything in it surrounding his strange monopolistic empire.  Instead of offering any sort of explanation, Diego just nodded enthusiastically at the woman, wanting to get this entire thing over with as soon as possible.

Seeming to humor him, she typed the name into the system, the reflection of the white screen appearing in her pupils as she examined what popped up.

“There’s a kid listed under Maxwell Hargreeves who was brought in earlier this morning,” The lady explained, leaning back in her chair slightly to look up at Diego over the monitor.

There was a split second in which Diego faltered, surprised by the name, but he recovered quickly.  He should have figured his brother would have claimed himself under a fake name.  It’s not like he had any documents to prove otherwise.

“Yeah,” Diego nodded, hoping that nothing odd showed on his face, and also hoping the lady wasn’t looking too closely anyway.  It wasn’t like he was a wanted criminal or trying to commit some scheme, he was just trying to bail his brother out of jail.  “I came to pick him up.”

The lady looked at Diego curiously, “Where are his parents?  Are you his legal guardian here?” 

Diego frowned slightly, but he was starting to get back into the hang of things, the lie falling easily off his tongue.  “Our parents died a few years back, he’s been living with me and my wife since.”

The lady either didn’t care enough to fact-check, or she believed Diego.  Either way, she just shrugged and nodded, seemingly placated by Diego’s vague explanation.  Once you bring up the death of a parent, the other person usually gets too uncomfortable to ask any more questions.

Reaching across the desk, she picked up the phone, punched a couple keys, and brought it up to her ear.  Diego waited, rocking back and forth on his heels impatiently, his hands stuffed tightly in his pockets, feeling the ridges of his keys on his keychain.

A few words were exchanged over the phone, and then she placed it back down on the receiver.  Diego looked at her expectantly, she just nodded over toward the door to the left of the counter, a loud electronic click reverberating through the center room.  An officer fully geared stepped out from behind the door, gesturing for Diego to follow.

“Thank you,” Diego said to the woman at the desk.  She smiled politely, although it didn’t reach much higher than the corners of her lips.

Guided by the officer, Diego was led down a hallway lined with differently labeled closed doors.  Many of them had names of people on them, supposedly offices of higher-ups, some of them had generic labels that distinguished storage closets and meeting rooms, but mostly it was other offices.  There weren’t many, but enough that it took a few seconds of walking to get to the other end of the hallway where the officer unlocked another door and guided Diego through it.

This was where the holding cells were.  Thin bars separating what looked like three different open cells were crudely placed along the back wall of this room.  There was another officer on the other side of the room standing near the bars, his back pressed to the wall and his arms crossed over his chest.  Next to him on the other side was a door that must have led to the other side of the station.  It was unlabeled although there was a small glass window around head height.

There were a couple other people in the cells, maybe three or four, spread between the first two cells and sitting on benches as far away from each other as the space would physically allow.  The room was silent aside from the slamming of the door behind them, and the click of the key in the lock as the officer next to Diego locked the door behind them.

One or two of the people looked up as Diego and the officer passed, and Diego found himself searching the faces for his brother, although he didn’t find it in either of the people in the first two cells.

Instead, his brother had been placed in the furthest cell away from the door, isolated from the others only by the fact he was the only one in the small barred room. 

As they approached, Diego saw Five curled in on himself on one of the benches furthest from the door, tucking himself into the corner of the cell, one knee to his chest, the other curled awkwardly with his foot resting behind the leg of the bench.  He had his arm wrapped around his leg, his cheek resting on his knee and his face turned away.

Long strands of greasy brown hair fell in tangled strands from his head.  It was longer than the last time Diego had seen him, he figured it would be almost shoulder length if he were sitting up normally, although it was hard to tell from his current position.

He was wearing a baggy green hoodie that hung awkwardly over his form, making it hard to see the full state of his body.  The hoodie was way too big on him, bunching up at his waist and hanging heavy on his shoulders, the hood tangled a bit on the back of his neck.  His pants were the same way, baggy jeans that seemed to drape off of him with holes torn in the knees.

For a moment, Diego didn’t even recognize him, assuming this had to be some kind of misunderstanding.  Maybe Five had given him the incorrect address when he had called.  Maybe Maxwell wasn’t even the fake name Five had given and this was some other random kid entirely.

But then the police officer knocked on the edge of the bars to get his attention, “Max, got your brother here.”

Five looked up, and immediately Diego knew this was his brother.

Five’s face had changed a lot since the last time he had seen him, but he still recognized him all the same.  He had lost weight, something Diego didn’t think was feasibly possible for him, but he noticed the way his cheekbones jutted out, his face lacking the significant baby fat he still had on his thirteen-year-old body the last time they had been in the same room.  But the freckles on his face were significant enough that there was no mistake, this was his youngest-oldest brother.

Diego also noticed Five looked filthy, for a moment it looked like he had gotten tanner, but upon closer inspection, it just looked like grime.  He was sporting a few-day-old black eye which was just starting to turn yellow among the mess of purple and red.  His jaw was bruised and there was a cut along his cheek that stretched across to his nose.  There was a scab over his bottom lip from where it had been split open recently, maybe yesterday or the day before.

He looked not only like he had just gotten in a fight, but he also looked a mess.  The bags under his eyes were so deep, that Diego would be surprised if he had slept at all within the last week. 

His cheeks were red and blotchy, streaks of something dragged between the smudges of dirt and sweat on his face and Diego couldn’t help but notice his eyes looked a little puffy around the edges.  At least apart from the black eye.  Diego had never seen Five cry before, not even when they were kids.  But he had seen the way Five’s face got all red after he had cried.  And he couldn’t help but notice the similarities between when they were younger and now.

Through all they had been through these past few years of fighting apocalypses and running from near death, Diego had never seen Five like this.  It unsettled him a little bit. 

Where had Five been this past year?

As his eyes came to rest tiredly on Diego through the bars, something twisted in Five’s expression, fast enough that if Diego were not familiar with his brother’s body language, he would have missed it.  His eyes widened ever so slightly, tight exhaustion seeping from his face for only a moment revealing surprise.  

Five’s shoulders sagged and he dropped his knee from his chest, a raspy breath leaving his lips.  

And then he seemed to remember himself, forcing his expression into one of neutrality, eyebrows furrowing into a slight glare, lip twitching around the edges into a scowl.

“Hey… Max…” Diego tried, doing his best to smile in the face of his brother, although he had a hard time masking his shock at the state Five was in.  He didn’t know what he was expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it.

“Diego,” Five muttered, and his voice was pinched and hoarse.  He used his right arm to brace himself on the wall as he pushed himself up to his feet.  His knees wobbled a bit as he stood, stumbling slightly to get his balance.

The officer unlocked the door to the cell Five was held in, looking at Five with an expression Diego only associated with disappointed teachers and mentors.

“Letting you off with a warning on this one, son,” The officer said, placing his hand hard on Five’s shoulder as Five all but stumbled toward the door to the cell.  Five sank a little under his grasp, wincing slightly and tensing up as if he wanted to pull away.  “I can’t keep going easy on you, one of these times we’re gonna have to give you some real trouble.  Stay with your brother and keep yourself out of trouble.”

And, to Diego’s shock, Five just sighed and nodded, not even jerking away from the clearly uncomfortably grasp the officer had him under.  His voice cracked as he muttered, “Yes sir.” So quietly Diego wasn’t even sure he had heard him correctly.

Diego didn’t think he would have ever heard those words come out of his brother's mouth.  At least not since they were still ten years old living under Reginald’s roof.  Even then, the formality was always ripped out of Five’s mouth with threats and physical reprimands.

The officer kept his hand on Five’s shoulder as he led them both back the way they had come from.  Five stumbled slightly, his legs almost giving out on him a few times as his knees knocked together.  Diego frowned, staring at Five as if he would be able to understand everything that had happened in the past year for Five.  He looked awful.  What had happened?

He shrank deeper into his hoodie, tucking his arms close to himself and seeming to make himself smaller by trying to curl in on himself while they walked.  No one said anything.  Diego noticed Five was trembling.  But he couldn’t tell why.

They got back out to the front of the station and the officer finally let go of Five.  He visibly relaxed now that he was no longer being held onto by a man almost twice his height.  Five moved to stand behind Diego, close enough that he could feel the prickle of his presence, but far enough away that Diego would have to reach out to touch him.  Diego quickly realized he was now standing between Five and the officer.

It almost felt like Five was hiding behind him.  Diego didn’t know what to think about that realization.

There was a little bit of paperwork Diego needed to do before they could leave, something Diego did quickly, not really focusing too much on the finer details.  He didn’t want to be here any longer than he needed to be.  The quicker he managed to drop Five off wherever his house or apartment was, the quicker Diego could get back home.

Through the paperwork and small talk with the officer who continued to hang around the front desk, Diego learned Five had gotten arrested for shoplifting, although it wasn’t anything major, just some snacks and some clothes. Still, it had been a repeated enough offense that the police had taken him in to find out where his parents were.  Since when did Five get caught for stealing, let alone from a store?

He supposed since they lost their powers and got stuck in this timeline.

The entire time, Five said nothing, continuing to stand behind Diego, his chin tucked into the collar of his hoodie and his right arm wrapped around to clutch the bicep of his left arm.  He stared at his feet, looking so much like a kid that Diego almost forgot he was actually almost sixty years old.  Five swayed slightly on his feet, still trembling, although it was less noticeable now.

Diego couldn’t help but notice how strangely Five was acting.  He was quiet, more so than Diego ever remembered his brother being.  Five was a talker.  He always had been.  Seeing him cowered behind Diego, silent and unmoving, unnerved him more than he would ever admit.

However, soon enough they were on their way out of the police station with another lighthearted warning from the officer from before.  Five said nothing the entire time, following Diego like a puppy.

As soon as they were out of the building and the doors were shut behind him, Diego turned to his brother.

“Alright… Max…” Diego said slowly, testing the waters with uncertainty, not knowing if the name from before had just been a way of avoiding questions, or if he had actually picked a name for himself.  Diego found that odd, considering he had been the only one to disregard Grace’s attempts to name him, but he would be happy for his brother nonetheless.  Perhaps Viktor’s transition and their newly normal life had given him some time to think about it.

“Don’t call me that,” Five snapped, although it was missing some of the usual bite that screamed ‘ I’ll stab you if you do that again ’. His voice was hoarse.  He sounded tired.

“Okay, jeez, just checking, you make me drive a whole hour to come get you, you could’ve at least provided more information.” Diego held his hands up in a placating gesture as he led Five to the van.  Five hunched his shoulders and refused to look at Diego, sucking in rattling breaths of air as if the mere action pained him.

Diego slid into the driver’s seat while Five all but stumbled his way into the passenger side.  He clambered up onto the seat, slamming the door behind him with much more force than was necessary on Diego’s poor van.  He fidgeted and curled in on himself, pressing his left shoulder deeper into the cushion of the seat as if he were trying to angle it away from Diego.  Was he hurt?

“Alright, spill,” Diego said simply, not even bothering to turn the van on just yet.  He was not going to drop Five off until he got some coherent answers out of the brat, and he didn’t think arguing with his younger-looking brother while trying to drive a vehicle would be a good idea.  “Where the hell have you been?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Five muttered, ever the one to answer questions.  He shivered and picked at the unraveling threads of his pants.

“I haven’t been having run-ins with the local police, that’s for sure,” Diego couldn’t help but snap.  His patience with Five had never been very high, and it hadn’t gotten any better in the year he had run off on his own.  If anything, this situation itself depleted what little energy he had to deal with Five.  “You run off and disappear for over a year and then need me to come bail you out of jail, I think you owe me an explanation because even Allison has called at least once this past year, I know what the hell she’s doing.  But not you.”

As docile as he had been since Diego had seen him in the jail cell, that seemed to get Five riled back up, lighting a spark beneath the simmering fire that was his short burning temper.

“What do you think I’ve been doing this entire time?” Five snapped, staring at Diego as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, green eyes boring right through his skull.  “Did you think I ran away again?  Went off to live my own merry life and leave you all behind to live some grand scheme where I don’t care about any of you?  What do you think, Diego?”

And, well, yeah, that’s exactly what Diego thought.  What other reason would he have to just disappear out of the blue like that, not a single word, letter, call, nothing?  For all they knew, he had dropped off the face of this timeline once again or had gotten involved with another super complicated high-tech agency designed to carry out some incomprehensible task to the average mind.  Something like that.

Apparently, Five must have seen it on Diego’s face.  He scoffed and quickly turned away from Diego, scrubbing at his face aggressively with one hand, panting like a dying dog.

“You’re so stupid, why did I even call you?” Five muttered to himself and the worst part was he didn’t sound angry.

“How did you know how to call me?” Diego asked, curious how Five had managed to get his phone number when he had been under police custody.  By all means, there should have been no way Five would have been able to contact him unless he somehow managed to give the police Diego’s name.  But even then, it would have been the police contacting Diego, not Five on his one phone call.

Five scoffed again, but then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, doing his best to smooth it out over his knee with his right hand.  Then he displayed it to Diego, not fully handing it to him, but angling it in a way Diego could read what was on it.

And he knew Five had never had the best handwriting, but this was nearly incomprehensible, smudged and shaky, the paper so crumpled the ink from the pen he had used was beginning to fade, smeared with stains of some unknown substance, but Diego could make out a list of numbers and names.  

It took him another few seconds of staring to realize it was a list of phone numbers.  Some of them were crossed out with another set of numbers underneath it, along with a name corresponding to most of their siblings.  Viktor, Diego, Luther, Allison.  The numbers under Ben and Klaus’ names were crossed out various times, with corrections added to the phone number.  It didn’t seem like either of them had a current phone number, at least not that Five had found.

The only two names Five hadn’t crossed out any of the phone numbers to were Diego and Allison.  Diego had gotten a job and an apartment with Lila pretty quickly, and he figured Allison was already established here due to her deal with old Reggie.  Diego could see now why Five had called him over anyone else.

“You don’t make it sixty years without being observant,” Five muttered, staring down at the paper as if it held the code to the world’s largest safe of gold.  He sniffed and rubbed the back of his hand over his cheeks and then folded the paper carefully and tucked it back in his pocket.

“You had our phone numbers this entire time and you didn’t think to call once?” Diego asked incredulously, clearly that hadn’t been Five’s intended takeaway by showing him his collection of phone numbers.  He glared at Diego, and then turned away, staring pointedly out the window.

“I’ve been a little busy lately trying to get by?” Five hissed, head angled in a way that it looked like he was talking to someone out the window.  Diego found it odd how he was refusing to look at Diego for very long, “Haven’t had a lot of time to come and visit.”

Of course, he didn’t.  Always busy, always something else more important.

He always pushed them away, just like when they were kids and just like their year-or-so-long stint to save the world three times over.  Five never seemed to show any care for them, running off on his own, pulling them in once he needed someone to bail them out, and then trying to get out again as soon as possible.  Always running, always looking for a way out, never staying in one place for long enough for anyone to get a good connection to him.

Diego and Five had never been close.  Not now, and not even when they had been kids.  Both of their anger and frustrations were too volatile for them to really see eye to eye on most things.  A part of Diego wished Five had called someone else to clean up after his messes because that was all Five ever went to them for was to help clean up some mess.

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t have the time to deal with this right now.” Diego grit his teeth and stared down at the steering wheel, thumping his palm against the stitched leather, “Where am I dropping you off?” He didn’t think he was getting anywhere with Five, and knowing how stubborn his brother was, he probably wouldn’t get anywhere any time soon.  And he had an hour's drive back home anyway.

“By the library,” Five said, leaning against the passenger side door, his chin tucked into the collar of his hoodie and his right arm wrapped around himself again, as if he were trying to hug himself, “That’s where I’ve been staying.”

“Okay,” Diego turned the key in the ignition and the van rumbled to life, sputtering a bit as it protested the chilling air.

The drive to the library was silent except for the rumbling of the van.  Neither Five nor Diego said a word to each other the entire way.  The tension felt so thick Diego felt that if he tried to move, there would be a physical barrier between him and Five.

Then Diego was turning down the street the library was on and he expected Five to point out which building he was staying in.  They drove past a few rental places and some small apartment complexes similar to the one Diego was staying in.  Five remained silent, watching out the passenger side window as they passed building after building.  He wasn’t asleep if the tight grip on his right hand over his bicep was anything to go on and the occasional sniffle.

“Which building is yours?” Diego finally asked, unable to hide the irritation in his tone.  He wasn’t in the mood for one of Five’s games.  He saw the library up ahead, and more buildings surrounding it, mostly stores and houses.  “Five?”

He pulled in front of the library and idled the van, not wanting to drive around the entire city block waiting for Five to give him a hint of another instruction.  Diego turned to glare at his brother, Five was still staring out the window, and Diego noticed he was shaking again.

Diego’s expression softened only a bit as he stared at Five, examining the dirty state of his clothes, the way he looked as if he hadn’t had a shower in at least a few months.  He was filthy, bruised to all hell, and wearing clothes that didn’t even fit him right.  He had lost so much weight since the last time Diego had seen him which showed up way more pronounced in his face.

Five still said nothing.  He didn’t move to point any of the buildings out, nor did he offer any further directions to Diego that might help him navigate.

“You have somewhere to stay, right?” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he had a chance to even think about what he was actually saying.

Five visibly tensed, but he said nothing, his chest heaved with each breath he took and he looked like he was having trouble breathing.

“Five?”

Diego reached out and put a hand on Five’s shoulder, Five jerked away the moment his hand barely touched him.  He turned, mouth hung open ever so slightly like he was prepared to snap at Diego, but there was something off in his expression.

His eyebrows were pinched together, face pale despite the bruises and grime that covered every part of his exposed skin.  His eyes were shiny and Diego could almost make out his entire reflection in his wide pupils.  When he turned, his hair fell in front of his face in greasy strands, tangled together in front of his forehead, blocking part of his expression.

For a moment he looked scared.  There was a look in his eyes that reminded Diego a lot of the look someone had when they realized they were choking on a bite that was much too big.  But Diego could see him breathing fine.

He growled and looked away from Diego.  His hand came to rest on the door handle, squeezing it tightly as he shoved the door open, prepared to make his grand escape before Diego could wring any coherent answers out of him.

Diego wasn’t letting that happen any time soon.  As much as he wanted to get back to Lila and Gracie and not have to deal with Five’s short temper, he wasn’t letting Five disappear again without a word or any means of contact.

“Get back in here,” Diego snapped, reaching out to grab Five by the arm and yank him back into the car.  Instead, as his hand grabbed hold of what would have been Five’s elbow, instead, all Diego got was a handful of empty hoodie sleeve, the fabric bunching under his fingers.

In surprise, Diego let go of Five’s sleeve, causing him to nearly fall out of the van.  Five caught himself with his right hand, a choked gasp leaving his lips and his knees nearly collapsing beneath him.

“What the hell?” Diego tried to grab Five’s arm again, but this time he was expecting it and moved his shoulder back so it was out of Diego’s reach.  The sleeve of his hoodie swung, empty, and Diego couldn’t help the shocked expression from lingering on his face.

How did Five manage to lose an arm in the year he had been left by himself?  Why didn’t he say anything?  What had he been doing all this time that got him an injury like that?

“Don’t touch me,” Five snapped, chest suddenly heaving with gasping breaths.  He pulled himself the rest of the way out of the van, trembling, his right hand clutched tightly around the handle of the car door for support.  He looked almost panicked and angry, like a hungry dog that had just been backed into a corner.

“Five, wait,” Diego was already unbuckling his own seatbelt and putting the van into park, preparing to lunge after Five in case he ran.  For a moment he actually forgot there was actually something he could do this time if Five decided to run.  He didn’t have his powers.  It wasn’t as easy as just disappearing into the fabric of space and hiding somewhere he wouldn’t be found.

To his utmost shock, Five stopped.  Glaring at Diego with such intensity that anyone other than his own brother would have withered underneath the stare.  His chest was heaving like he had just run a mile and he angled his left shoulder away from Diego as if he were trying to tuck it away from view.

“Get back in the van, Five,” Diego spoke slowly, not wanting to say the wrong thing and cause him to run off again.  It had been over a year since the last time Diego had seen his brother.  Who knew what had gone on during that time, what Five had been up to, what he had been forced to endure.

“Don’t tell me what to do, I don’t need you,” Five bit out, his voice dripping with venom.  Diego stared at the empty hoodie sleeve and couldn’t possibly believe how he hadn’t noticed earlier.  He should have noticed.

“Five, get in the van,” Diego’s tone was firm, he didn’t want to start an argument.  He knew that if he did, there would be no way to get through to Five.  Although it seemed like he was already approaching the point of no return with his glare and halfhearted insults like he couldn’t think of anything better to say.

Clearly, there had to have been a reason why Five had called Diego of all people to come bail him out of jail.  He had to be in some seriously deep water for him to actually ask for help.

The fact he hadn’t immediately run away was saying something too.  Diego just didn’t know if he exactly liked the picture it was painting.

He could very easily slam the door in Diego’s face and run off somewhere to hide, find a nice cozy alley to obscure himself in.  If Five wanted to hide, there was no way of finding him, he had been like that ever since they were kids.  Even without his powers, Diego didn’t underestimate his ability to not be found.

Had Five been living on the streets this entire time?  Diego didn’t get through most of the police academy back in the original timeline just for him to not notice things like that.  He was avoiding the question of a home or some sort of apartment, Five only avoided questions when the only answer he had would be something the other person didn’t want to hear.

For a well-trained assassin, Five was a horrible liar.

“Five,” Diego said again, frustration bubbling along with a mix of other emotions he didn’t exactly have a name for swirling around in his chest.  His chest felt tight, heart hammering against his rib cage like the beat of a dying bird.

Five had been alone this entire time.  He was injured.  And he had nowhere else to go.  

The only reason he would’ve asked for help is if he had physically no other options.

Five was at the end of his rope.

Before he could call his name again, Five began to move, thankfully back toward the van with shaking limbs and jerky movements.  He swallowed hard, a look of anger mixed with shame overcoming his features for only a moment before he steeled himself.  He sniffed, and wet his lips, using his right hand to hook around the edge of the seat and haul himself back into the van.  Diego didn’t miss the way he was trembling or the way he seemed to collapse like a puppet with no strings.

Then the passenger door shut with a heavy slam, and the silence in the van seemed to reverberate like they had been plunged into a deep pool in the middle of some dark cave.  Diego didn’t know what to say.  Five would never willingly give an explanation to anything.

He kept his right hand wrapped protectively around his left arm, or, whatever was left of it.  Diego couldn’t be certain until he saw what was underneath the hoodie, but Five grabbed his upper bicep, knuckles paling with the tightness of his grip, it had to aggravate the injury if there even was still an injury.  Diego didn’t know how long those things took to heal.  

Five stared down at his lap, glaring at nothing with his lips pointedly pressed into a thin line.  He was shaking.

How did Diego not notice earlier?  It was such an obvious thing to notice, even if Five was wearing a hoodie, he should have paid more attention to him.  Hell, Diego should have checked him over for injuries the moment they stepped outside of the police department.  He knew Five was bruised up, he should have checked for more than that.  Five had a track record of hiding injuries from them.

“Five,” Diego started slowly, worry and concern bubbling up in the back of his throat so rapidly that Diego had no idea how to properly convey it with anything except, “You were alone for a year, how the hell did you lose an arm?”

That got Five’s attention immediately.

He snapped his head up to look at Diego, eyes wide with shock, mouth hanging open slightly as if he couldn’t believe what Diego had just asked.  Five was silent for a few seconds, staring at Diego dumbfounded.  The way he was looking at him made Diego shift confusedly, he had never got a reaction like that out of Five before.

Seconds, then a few more, and then Five blinked, closed his mouth, and let out an exhale so heavy that there was only one thing that could come from that.

For the record, Five didn’t shout right away.

“You didn’t even notice?” Five said, voice unwavering, disbelief still obvious in his tone.  He blinked, turned away from Diego, and clutched his arm tighter, chest rising and falling shakily with each breath he pulled into his lungs.

“Well it’s a little hard to see when you’re bundled up in a sweatshirt that’s about three sizes too big,” Diego tried to defend himself, gesturing lamely to Five as if that might help his case.  He would admit, the lack of a second arm was something he probably should have noticed.  But he was a little distracted with his own annoyance at the situation, so he admittedly didn’t examine Five as well as he should have.

That was clearly the wrong thing to say.  Five was looking at him again with that look on his face like he couldn’t believe anyone could be so stupid.  Diego was used to receiving that look from Five, but the undertones of shock were different.

“After everything that I sacrificed for you all and you didn’t even notice?” Five started to raise his voice, anger rising to his cheeks in the form of a deep flush.  He always got red when he was mad.  Diego shifted uncomfortably in his seat and wished they weren’t in such a confined space.

“Look, man, I’m sorry, okay,” Diego held up his hands in front of himself in a placating gesture with his palms towards Five, “I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“The fight with the guardian, trying to get you all out of that stupid mess before anyone else could get killed, and you don’t even notice,” Five leaned away from Diego, pressing his back against the door of the car as if he were about to bolt.  He almost seemed like he was talking to himself, shaking his head slightly and breathing heavily through his nose.  

The fight with the guardian… That was over a year ago.

Diego frowned slightly, with his hands still held in front of himself.  Why was Five bringing that up now?  After walking away, Diego had just assumed that if there was something important, Five would find all of them like he always did.  And clearly, by the list of phone numbers the kid had, he had done just that, but as far as Diego knew, he had never reached out to anyone.

So what did the fight with the guardian have anything to do with this?  That fight sucked, Diego was glad it was over.  He definitely didn’t want to lose any other fingers trying to fight any of the other ones.

Five’s eyes caught on Diego’s left hand and the missing fingers.  Diego looked down at his hands as well.  When they had stumbled out of the elevator, the wound had magically sealed up, skin folding over as if there had never been any fingers there to begin with…

Oh.

Diego’s eyes widened, and he looked at Five with a mix of shock and guilt ebbing in the center of his chest.  He had almost missed the guardian slicing off Five’s arm, a little too preoccupied with everything else that was going on.  Diego didn’t have a lot of time to notice or process what had happened before Five had teleported down to the other sigil on the floor and they were getting the life drained out of them.

He didn’t really pay attention to Five after that.  There had been other things to worry about at the time, and his mind was preoccupied.

What almost sounded like a choked laugh bubbled up from the back of his throat, a smile that was anything but happy causing his lips to twitch, teeth baring like a feral dog.  Diego couldn’t remember the last time he had heard Five laugh, this definitely wasn’t the laugh he had in mind.

“After all that…” Five laughed, running his hand down his face before slicking his fingers through the tangled greasy strands of his bangs. “I sacrifice so much for all of you and the least you can do is remember!”  He sucked in a shaky breath through his teeth, panting, “You don’t even know half the things that I’ve done for you all.”

He was starting to yell now, voice picking up in volume as he seemed to work himself into more of a frenzy.  Diego frowned, his nose twitching in agitation.  Five turned away from Diego, hunching his shoulders with another breath.

“Well maybe if you’d actually tell us things instead of screwing off to god knows where!” Diego countered, not even pretending he wasn’t getting worked up.  He didn’t match Five’s volume, but he was getting up there, anger the only thing he let fester in his chest, bubbling up to the back of his throat.  “You always say that you’ve done so much for this family but no one even knows what the hell you’re talking about because you never tell us.”

“I thought at least some things would be obvious enough!” Five snapped, turning to look at Diego with a manic expression, eyebrows raised and mouth contorted into a half frown, teeth still barred.  He snapped his jaw shut and actually growled.  “I lost my entire arm and no one even noticed.  No one cared!  None of you ever seem to care about me at all!  Or what I do to protect you all!”

Diego couldn’t help the guilt beginning to eat away at his chest.  He should have noticed.  He should have done something.  He should have at least stopped to check up on Five.  But every time one of them tried to do so, Five wouldn’t let them get close enough to even try.  He always pushed them away, brushed off their concern, or forced them to back off with angry words and threats of violence.

Diego tried to justify that to himself, but he couldn’t help the sour taste in his mouth.  He should have done more.  He should have made an effort to find where Five had been living, figure out what he had been up to, and make sure he had settled in alright.

Luther and Viktor had done that to him.  He should have at least thought to check on Five.

“I would have noticed if you didn’t just disappear on all of us!” Diego insisted, still trying to defend himself.  Five could have called any of them at any point in time throughout this past year.  He could have reached out himself if he was doing that badly.  He could have said something if he was struggling.

Five had left them with no way to find or contact him, he had been gone for over a year and didn’t even give a hint he was still alive.  He all but disappeared from any of their radar.  No one had seen him since they all split ways, although it had been a little while since Diego had talked to any of the family.

Diego tried to ignore the sinking feeling that Five never had anyone to rely on before.  He had been forced to do everything himself.  Why would he suddenly decide to start asking for help now?  He had been saving his own skin his entire life with not a single soul to pick up any lost pieces of himself.

What happened that caused him to reach out now?

“You left me!” Five shouted, his voice cracking with emotion.  He tensed his shoulders, slamming his hand into the meat of his thigh.  “You all walked away before we could figure anything out!  What was I supposed to do?”

“Follow?  Call one of us?  You clearly had the means to do so,” Diego gestured to Five, clearly referring to his list of phone numbers he had clearly been making note of for a while.  A couple of months, maybe more, given the state of the paper.

Diego should have stayed back.  He should have checked in on Five.

He should have done something besides wait for his brother to eventually show up, like he always did, with some sort of end of the world.  Five never showed up with good news, he never called just to chat, and he never made an effort unless it was important.

Diego should have made more of an effort on his part.  Five didn’t know how to rely on others.

“Maybe I decided that I didn’t want to keep sacrificing my own body to keep you idiots safe?  What about that?” Five huffed out a breath as if he couldn’t believe the argument they were having.  He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair and pushing it away from his face.  By the way he was panting it almost seemed like he was done.  Then he opened his mouth and continued. 

“I’m in this stupid body because I came back to save you all from dying.  I lost my arm because I tried to save you from dying.  I have done so much because you all keep dying ,” Five wasn’t even looking at Diego anymore, his eyes bouncing around the inside of the car, not really stopping to rest on anything.  He hit his thigh again in frustration.  “Everything I have done has been for you all, and look where that gets me!”

“I’m sorry you lost your arm, okay!” Diego finally blurted, not knowing what else he was supposed to say in this situation.  What was he supposed to do?  What was he supposed to say?  How was he supposed to make this right when he knew this had been simmering for almost a year now.  “How was I supposed to know?”

“You were there!” Five glared at Diego, he gestured to Diego’s hand, the missing fingers, “You went through the same thing!”

“So were all the others!  They were all there too,” Diego tried to shift some of the blame away from himself.  This wasn’t just all his fault.  There were four other people in this family who should have also been putting in an effort.  “Why did you even call me if you had everyone else's phone number just tucked into your pocket?” 

He couldn’t help but feel a stab of betrayal at the fact that Five could have contacted any of them whenever he wanted, but he didn’t.

“I figured you wouldn’t care this much,” Five scoffed and turned away.

Diego’s breath left his lungs and it took him a second to remember to breathe.

What the hell was that supposed to imply?

“Of course I care, you’re my brother,” Diego scrambled, struggling to find the right words even though he knew there was probably nothing he could say to convince Five. “I drove an hour to come get you because unfortunately, I care.” 

“Not enough to actually try to find me,” Five lowered his voice a little bit, almost sounding more dejected than angry at this point.  He leaned back against the passenger side door, rubbing his pants leg and picking at loose threads.  “None of you did.  None of you cared.”

Diego just assumed Five would be able to take care of himself.  He had taken care of himself for forty-five years of his life.  It wasn’t like this was his first time surviving on his own.  

He shouldn’t have to survive on his own.  He should have his family to help him.

Diego should have tried to find him.

“You’ve been living on the streets this entire time?” Diego asked softly.  Taking a deep breath and holding it for a few seconds before letting it out.  He was so stupid.  They had all been so stupid.

“Where else was I supposed to go?” Five asked incredulously,  “I can’t get a job, I can’t get an apartment.  I look thirteen .  No one wants to hire a thirteen-year-old.  Especially not one who—”  He stopped.  Five reached across his chest and rubbed his left arm, deflating a little bit as if all the energy had suddenly drained out of him.

No one would hire a thirteen-year-old with one arm.  That would raise too many questions.  Even paying cash under the table would bring about some attention when the worker looked like a child.  He couldn’t get away with doing that.

Even if he had the means to an income, he wouldn’t be able to get a house either.  Not without paperwork, a birth certificate, social security, anything. 

Legally, Five didn’t exist. 

How was he supposed to make a living for himself in a world he didn’t even exist in?

“Okay…” Diego took another deep breath.  What else was there to say?  He shifted the van into drive, easing the vehicle away from the curb they had been idling in front of this entire time.

A look of panic flashed across Five’s face and he moved to grab the door handle as if he were going to try to escape.  Diego locked the door before he could.  He was always running, wasn’t he?

“Five,” Diego said pointedly, Five froze, “I’m taking you back to my place.”

“Why?” Five blurted, clearly surprised although he was doing his best to wipe the shocked look off his face.

“What the hell do you expect me to do?” Diego snapped, barely looking at Five out of the corner of his eyes as he focused on the road in front of them.  He had a small feeling he wouldn’t be able to keep his tone angry if he looked over at Five, “I’m not just going to leave you to live on the streets.”

Five didn’t seem to have anything to say to that.  He glared down at his lap, clutching the fabric of his pants so tight that the color drained from his knuckles with the strain.

Diego drove in silence because what more was there to say.  His brother had been living on the streets for over a year with the means to contact any of them, and yet he had refused to do so.  Diego just didn’t understand why.  If he could have asked for help, why didn’t he do so months ago?  Why did he feel the need to wait this long before he decided to ask someone?

A nagging feeling in the back of his mind told Diego he should have been looking for him first.  The moment the thought of Five had crossed his mind, he should have gone to look for him.  Posted ads in the paper, something like that.  Do what Sissy had done for Viktor when they were all in Dallas.

But instead, he just assumed Five had run away again.  He assumed he had just decided to disappear without a trace again, leaving them to fend for themselves in a scary new world without their powers and a memory of grief in the shape of a thirteen-year-old boy.  Just like it had been seventeen years ago.

Except, Five hadn’t run away seventeen years ago.  He didn’t choose to disappear without even so much as a note to where he had gone, a way to contact him, or anything.  He had gotten trapped in hell for forty years of his life.  And he had spent every day since trying to get back to his family.

Five didn’t run away.  Five always had the habit of getting taken from him.

But this time, they had run away from him.

Diego gripped the steering wheel a little harder, clenching his jaw so tightly he could feel his teeth grinding with the strain.  They were all so stupid.  They left their brother in a world that was so much worse for him than any of them.  He had gotten so caught up in the fact that Five really was a fifty-eight-year-old man, that he had actually forgotten that everyone else would just see a child.

A child with no name except a number, no birth certificate, no social security, no actual parents (And no, Reginald didn’t count, no one would believe him in this world anyway), and no one to even vouch for him and his autonomy.

He had nothing.

He was supposed to have five means of support.  He was supposed to have five people in his court who were supposed to love him and care for him.

Seems Reginald wasn’t the only one who had failed as a family member.

Diego was only broken out of his spiraling thoughts by a strange gurgling sound from the passenger seat.  Diego looked over at Five out of the corner of his eye curiously, not fully turning his head to look at him.  He furrowed his eyebrows and frowned slightly.

Five curled in on himself tighter, wrapping his arm around his torso and hunching his shoulders to make himself seem smaller.  He was still looking down at his lap, looking every bit like a child who had just gotten scolded by his parents.  Five clenched his shirt and shoved his forearm further into his belly.

It took a second for Diego to realize that it was his stomach rumbling.

“There’s a granola bar or something in the glove compartment,” Diego told him, hoping he sounded casual although he could barely hear himself over the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.  He felt tense, he was sure he looked tense, and he was so scared of saying the wrong thing because clearly, the wrong things were the only words he knew how to say.  “You should eat something.”

Five swallowed thickly, but still, he said nothing.  Diego could see his chest barely rising and falling with each breath he took, a rattling wheeze seeming to scratch the flesh of his throat whenever he breathed.

Diego didn’t want to prod, but he knew the kid must be starving.

He imagined this must have been similar to the apocalypse for Five… The place he was supposed to have gotten out of by now.  They were all supposed to be free, no more apocalypse, no more death, no more killing.  He had gotten out of there five years ago, but now they had almost thrown him right back into it.

Diego opened his mouth to say something about the snack in the glove compartment, but Five was already reaching out with jerky, shaky movements, fumbling with the small latch.  It seemed ever since Five had come back originally, he always had some sort of small hand tremor.  Diego had noticed it a few times when he caught Five writing on the walls what felt like years ago.

Now though, his hands trembled, although Diego could imagine it was exacerbated by all the other things going on with Five at the moment.  He turned his attention back to the road as Five got the compartment open, the sound of rustling papers and trash the only sound in the van beside the engine.

He found the granola bar after a small bit of searching, the wrapper crinkling as he clutched it in his hand much tighter than seemed necessary.  Diego was about to ask if he might need help with getting it open, the knowledge that he had lost his arm so fresh in the back of his mind that he didn’t think he’d be able to get it out of his head.  

But then Five propped it up between his thighs, bracing it against the inside part of his leg.  He tore open the plastic packaging with a bit too much force and sent crumbs flying, but Diego didn’t have it in him to care.

He tried to ignore Five as he bit into the granola bar with the same fervor as someone who hadn’t eaten properly in months.  He probably hadn’t.

Diego thought back to the police station and what he had felt when he found out what Five had actually gotten arrested for.  At first he had been shocked, but more so in an amused way.  He could hardly believe the brother he used to sneak out with to steal from the local convenience store had gotten arrested for shoplifting.  He had only stolen small items like some food and some clothes, nothing worthy of an actual charge at the time, but Diego had to wonder how many times he had stolen before.

The police seemed to recognize him.  How long had he been out on the streets?  How many times had he gotten caught before the police had decided enough was enough and he needed someone to come pick him up?

How exhausted did he have to be for him to actually have gotten caught for something that should have come so easily to someone like Five?

How far past his limit had Five been pushed before he decided to ask for help?  Was this the point at which there were no other options for Five?  Was this rock bottom?  Or was this even worse?

Diego couldn’t help the ache that throbbed in the center of his chest at the thought.  He wished his brother had called him sooner.  He wished Five had come to find them months ago, even right away once they had split off.  Surely he needed some place to crash, and even bouncing around dingy motels with his brother would’ve been better than being on the street.  At least that way he had some way of getting places.

Diego wished he had gone looking first.  There was no one else to blame except for him and the rest of their siblings for not taking care of him.  Five had done so much for them, the least they could’ve done was make sure he wasn’t living on the streets in this new mundane timeline.

“Why didn’t you call sooner?” Diego asked after a while of driving in silence, his knuckles white from his grip on the steering wheel.  Almost fifteen minutes had passed since Five had finished the granola bar, and he had passed that time rubbing his palm on the fabric of his pants or fidgeting with his hoodie.

The silence was almost palpable.  Diego wasn’t sure Five was even going to answer him at all.  He hadn’t said a word since they had pulled away from the library, and he never had a very good track record at answering people’s questions.

“I was handling it,” Five mumbled after a long pause.  He shifted so he could press his shoulder against the passenger side door, slouching in on himself and knocking his head against the glass with a soft thud.  “I’ve survived worse.”

“Just because you’ve survived worse doesn’t mean you can’t ask for help,” Diego tried softly, trying to remember things the others had said when they had tried to get through to Five.  He had to admit that he didn’t recall many conversations.  They really just thought he would get through anything.  And, well, Diego supposed he had gotten through this as well, like a cockroach under the rubble refusing to die.  That didn’t make the situation sit any better in his stomach.

Five may be resilient, but that didn’t mean he was without his limits.

“I don’t need your help,” Five hissed, and it seemed like there was something else hiding behind his words.  Diego didn’t know how to even begin to drudge that up.  He was probably the worst person in this situation.

“I know you don’t,” Diego said, almost to himself.  Five never needed any of them to survive, he had lasted on his own long enough.  “But we still want to help you.”

Five audibly scoffed at that, turning his face away from Diego so he didn’t have to continue this conversation.  Diego let the topic drop, a frown eating at the edges of his lips as he stared at the street in front of them.  He wished they didn’t have another forty minutes of driving ahead of them.  He had never gone on a family road trip before, but he was sure there was nothing that could be worse than an hour in the car with Five like this.

One step at a time, get them both home, get Five something to eat and a change of clothes, and then they could deal with everything from there.  Diego couldn’t even imagine all the things going through Five’s head right now, not that he ever could predict what his brother was thinking, now it was even worse.

Whenever he looked over at Five, Five was looking anywhere but Diego, head turned out to the window, down looking at his lap, staring pointedly straight ahead.  And yet, Diego could still feel his eyes on him, burning holes into the side of his head once he glanced back to the road.

Diego wanted to say something.  Diego wanted to say many things actually.  But he didn’t even know where to start. 

Five deserved an apology.  He just didn’t know where to begin with one in a way that didn’t sound ingenuine.  If there was one thing the Hargreeves were awful at, it was apologies.

Not wanting to start a fight, Diego did the only thing he knew how to do and said nothing.

The rest of the car ride was awful, silent, and tense.  Not even the rumble of the engine was enough to ease some of the silence.  Five stared out the window, holding onto the upper part of his arm, and leaned against the passenger door.

Diego was ever thankful when he finally pulled up to the rundown apartment building he and Lila had been calling home for the past few months.  He eased the van into one of the parking spots and cut the engine, pulling the key out of the ignition in the same motion.  

He wasted no time in climbing out of the vehicle and rounding to the other side where Five was just beginning to pull himself out of whatever stupor he had fallen into.  He sniffled, shifted, and fumbled with his seat buckle as Diego opened the passenger side door, already leaning forward to assist.

“I don’t need your help,” Five spat, knocking Diego’s hand away and stumbling out of the van like a newborn deer, wobbly knees and everything.  He probably would’ve shoved Diego, except Diego was on his left side, and he apparently didn’t have the energy to really hit him with his shoulder.  He just shoved past Diego and crossed his arm over his chest indignantly.

“Okay…” Diego muttered, pulling away and giving Five his space.  “Jeez.” He locked the van and shoved his hands into his pockets, crushing down the instinct to grab Five’s arm and stabilize him when he stumbled.  He looked dead on his feet, trembling where he stood like his legs were about to give out and zig-zagging like a drunken man when he walked.

Wisely, Diego kept his hands in his pockets.

He led the way into the apartment building, Five trailing behind him with a few feet of space between them.  His footsteps scuffed against the carpeted floor, the soles of his shoes dragging every slight shuffle forward almost like a zombie.  Every once in a while he would stumble, veering to one side or the other and then pull himself back up suddenly.

Five must be exhausted.

He had always been a little uncoordinated since coming back from the future, bumping into things or shuffling awkwardly around furniture.  But there was always something inherently conscious about the way Five moved like every motion had a lengthy thought process behind it.  He only moved after he had considered every other way he could have possibly moved faster than anyone else could keep up with.

Now, Five moved as if he were asleep.  He put one foot in front of the other and then stumbled, the other foot barely coming to place next to the other.  The purposefulness that Five expressed in every exaggerated motion seemed so much more muted even in the way he stood, with his shoulders hunched and his chin tucked to his chest to make himself smaller.

Diego tried not to pay attention to him.  He slid his tongue over his lips and let out a quiet breath.

Instead of the stairs, Diego stopped in front of the elevators and pressed the up button with his knuckle.  He often took the stairs at the end of the day. It was nice to stretch his legs after sitting for so long at work.  But Five wouldn’t make it all the way up to the third floor.  And he would be too proud to admit that too.

The rickety elevator doors opened and Diego stepped inside tentatively, placing his palm on the inside of the door to keep it open while Five hobbled in.  He leaned against the back wall, pressing himself into the corner of the elevator as Diego pressed the “3” button.

“We’ll have to be quiet going in,” Diego said, just to fill the silence as the elevator rattled in its ascent.  “Gracie might still be sleeping.”

And then, because he realized Five had no way of knowing who he was talking about, Diego added quickly.  “That’s our daughter.”

He looked at Five for his reaction.  Five just clenched his jaw and looked away, the shadows under his eyes exaggerated in the elevator lighting.  He backed further into the corner and hunched his shoulders.  Diego couldn’t read him.

“She’s three months old now, almost four,” Diego continued because Five deserved to know.  He had been gone long enough, seventeen years and one and a half extra were enough.  He should get to know at least one of his nieces, even if the situation was less than ideal.

“You and Lila?” Five mumbled after a seconds pause, once he realized Diego was looking for some sort of response.

“Yeah,” Diego said, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.  He shifted uncomfortably when Five’s eyes turned to look at him, deep green irises boring into him with exhaustion and deep understanding.  He didn’t know what kind of reaction he expected, but this was more unnerving than anything.  As soon as he got over his surprise, the disappointment was swift to bubble up.

Diego figured that would be the end of the conversation then, he turned away from Five and tried to pretend Five wasn’t still staring at him like a tired hawk.

“That’s good for you two, then,” Five finally said, once he had finished eyeing Diego up.  He looked away again, blinking slowly and turning his gaze toward the floor.  Diego balked at the sincerity of his tone.

“Thanks,” Diego mumbled, the word spilling from his lips on autopilot.

Five’s way of sincerity always took Diego by surprise.  It never sounded like he meant anything he said unless it was an insult.  But there was always something in his face, a twitch of his lip or a smile that only showed in his eyes, it always gave away something more to his words, something soft, almost loving.

Five tucked his chin against his chest, fed up at all the eye contact and looking at each other.  He said nothing the rest of the elevator ride and barely seemed to shrink out of his corner once the doors finally did open.

Diego stepped out, held the door, and waited for Five to follow.  He sniffed and tucked his hand into his hoodie pocket, brushing past Diego and then flinching away as if the touch burned him.  Five had never been one for touch.

The keys jangled in his hands as he pulled them out of his jacket pocket, the key ring slotting around the knuckle of his first finger.  He spun them once just for fun like he used to do with his knives, but the uneven weight of the keychain sent them flying out of his hands right in front of the door.  Diego swallowed a lump in his throat while he bent to pick them up.

Surprisingly, Five said nothing about the mishap.  He would have done so a year ago before they were all stranded in this new strange timeline without their powers.  He would have scoffed and said something about how if Diego couldn’t even handle a ring of keys right, they shouldn’t allow him behind the wheel.

Instead, the silence stretched on long and heavy.

He unlocked the door and gently pushed it inwards as if he were revealing some grand palace, a glorious refuge he and Lila had created for themselves throughout the twelve months, something better than it actually was.  The door hit against the stopper with a small thud, hinges squealing unhappily.  Some of the paint peeled from the entryway and Diego had the fleeting thought that it was taunting him.

Diego went in first, Five followed as he had been doing this entire time.  He said nothing once inside, even though Diego saw his eyes pass over the drab entryway and the messy side table with hair ties, receipts, packets of gum, and anything else that had been pulled from day-old coat pockets and left to be forgotten.  

The coat rack was barely attached to the wall, one coat missing until Diego shrugged his off his shoulders and placed it in its rightful spot to balance the whole display.  It creaked and tipped to the side like a ship on the water before righting itself.

Five stood still, hovering on the mat in front of the door awkwardly, his hand in his pocket, his shoulders hunched protectively like he had been doing this entire time.  He made no move to take off his shoes or sweatshirt.

Diego locked the door behind them both, dropped his keys on the table, and took off his shoes, falling into the comfortable routine of returning home, unbothered by the addition of his youngest-oldest brother.

“You can leave your shoes by the door,” Diego told him, breaking him out of his sudden stupor, as if Five had forgotten where he was.  He nodded mutely and toed off his well-worn shoes, the sole separating as he stepped out of it and kicked it toward the pile of other shoes.  Diego noticed the sad state of affairs that was the knotted laces begging for relief, Five made no effort to put the knot out of its misery and merely shoved it to the side.

Diego felt like he should say something, but the words never formed in his mind.  Five stood there, face contorted into a grimace of humiliation and shame, in his hole-ridden socks and dirty clothes.  He didn’t look Diego in the eyes, and Diego didn’t blame him.

“It’s not much,” Diego started, finally tearing his gaze away from Five, he turned to the rest of the apartment, finding it much easier to talk about anything else than what they really needed to discuss.  “But it works for the three of us.”

Right, three.  Because now Diego had a daughter, and now Five had another niece.  And Five had never been there to meet her when she was born, just like they had all missed Claire’s birth so many years ago.

Diego swallowed past a lump in his throat and gestured to the apartment with its shabby couch falling apart in the living room, and the water stains on the ceiling.  The kitchen still had dishes in the sink from breakfast, and the countertops were stained red from countless nights of spilled spaghetti sauce.

Five shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, looking every bit as awkward as he probably felt.  Diego led him further into the apartment and he reluctantly followed, eyes moving around and taking in the scenery.

”You want something else to eat?“ Diego offered, turning into the kitchen to scrounge something up from the fridge for Five.  He had to still be hungry, there was no way that a single granola bar would satisfy however many day old hunger.

Five took a breath, and looked away from Diego as he spoke, ”Yes.“  

He chewed on the inside of his mouth, sucking his cheeks in like he used to when they were younger.  He stared at the peeling paint on the kitchen wall, hovering a few feet away from Diego, his back almost pressed against the doorframe.  

Every time Diego looked over, Five seemed closer and closer to the doorway, like he was consciously or unconsciously creeping closer to the exit, like he planned to make some grand escape the next time Diego looked away.

Diego made quick work of putting together a peanut butter sandwich from the sparse jar of peanut butter and slightly stale bread they owned.  They had been meaning to run to the store over the weekend, but the weekend had come and gone, and they still had no new groceries.

Five still cowered by the door.  He fidgeted with the empty sleeve of his sweatshirt, tugging on the hem of it and wrapping the fabric around his fingers.  He looked anywhere but Diego and said nothing for a long time.  Diego wasn't used to his brother being this quiet.

“How'd you get arrested?” Diego tried, walking around the subject as if he were navigating a minefield.  Start with something small, build up to the bigger conversation, and keep both of their tempers in check by talking about almost nothing.

”Must've gone to that place one too many times,“ Five mumbled, ever vague, but Diego could get the clear picture. ”Those cops keep watching me like a hawk, can't get anything with them breathing down my back.”

Diego stared down at the pathetic sandwich in front of him, pressing the knife into the bread as he spread the peanut butter.

”Cops, huh,“ Diego mumbled with a lack of anything better to say.  ”Can't learn when to back off.“

He hoped Five might find that funny, or that he might go along with complaining about the police to Diego, something to keep him talking, just for Diego to hear his voice.  The first thing you forget about a person is their voice.

Five didn't take the bait.  He hummed in acknowledgement that Diego had said something, but then the conversation died just as quickly as it started.  Diego wasn't good at keeping them going, and Five wasn't the most conversational.

Diego cut the sandwich in half, a bit of the peanut butter sticking to the top of the bread as the butter knife fought its way through the flesh of the bread.  He sawed at it about as ungracefully as a man without the ability to handle knives as if they were an extension of his body. 

The sandwich looked awful.

Diego offered the plate to Five who took only the sandwich and then backed away to his corner of the room.  Five ate quickly, not even bothering to sit down at the table first, his fingers making divots in the bread with how tightly he grasped it.

Five was just licking the peanut butter from his fingers when Lila walked into the room, her hair slightly disheveled and a sweater draping from her shoulders.

Her eyes betrayed her momentary surprise upon seeing Five standing like a feral cat in the corner of their kitchen.  She looked Five over once, twice, and then a third time, hardly believing what she was seeing.  Diego hovered by the counter and gave her a nervous look, praying she would play nice for once in her life.

Five stared her down with his eyebrows furrowed, although Diego could hardly count that as a glare.  He had softened only slightly to Lila the last few times they had seen each other over a year ago.  However, Diego had a hard time hoping those unsteady foundations would remain standing for much longer.

“Well you look like hell warmed over,” Lila muttered, although it didn't seem so much as an insult directed at Five as it sounded like an exclamation of surprise.

Five swallowed and wrinkled his nose, ”Nice to see you too, Lila.” He growled, frustrated.  He backed further away from her and crossed his arm over his chest protectively like he had been doing earlier.

Lila continued to stare at Five like if she looked away he would disappear.  Then she huffed, rolled her eyes, and simply turned to Diego, ignoring that Five was even in the room.

”Gracie is gonna be hungry pretty soon,“ Lila said, brushing past Diego to grab a bottle from the cabinet behind him.  She pressed her shoulder against his and Diego felt the warmth radiating from her like she had just gotten out of bed herself.

“Is she still asleep?” Diego asked, looking back and forth from Lila to Five in the corner.  He swallowed thickly and licked his lips, not sure if he wanted Lila to be around while he tried to talk with Five.  She would probably make it worse.  Diego would probably make it worse too, but there wouldn't be anyone else available to have this conversation.

“Yeah,” Lila said, “She'll probably be up soon though.“ She continued to make a bottle as if nothing was wrong as if Five wasn't standing in the kitchen like nothing more than a spirit, as if Diego wasn't being eaten away by the guilt of having left his brother alone again.

”Could you take care of her when she wakes up?“ Diego asked, placing a hand around her waist, and tapping his fingers nervously against her side.  Lila paused her steady motions, staring down at the running faucet.  Diego saw her wet her lips and frown.

”Sure,” She said after a momentary pause.  She looked up at Diego with a curious look and then lowered her voice, ”What are you going to do with him?“

Diego tried not to look at Five who was also trying not to look at them but failed to make it look convincing.

”I don't know yet,“ Diego whispered back and then let go of Lila's waist, stepping away from her so she could finish making a bottle for Gracie.

And Diego didn't know what to do.  He didn't know how to talk to Five, he didn't know what he could possibly do to help his brother, and he didn't know how he was going to approach this situation.  He didn't know what he was going to do.

Lila sucked in a deep breath but said nothing else.  The kitchen was painfully silent and tense.  There was a heavy air in the room, threatening against whoever might break the quiet that had crept in like a fog.  Lila made a bottle for their daughter, Diego leaned against the counter and pretended like he wasn't staring, and Five watched the two of them with the tension of a rabbit surrounded by wolves.

When had his brother gotten that look on his face?  When had he started to look so scared?  So hungry?  So weak?

How long had it taken for him to fall back into his old survival habits once he realized he was on his own?  How long did it take for him to realize he was on his own?

Diego picked at his fingernails and then grimaced as he tugged at a piece of skin not ready to be removed.  The skin stung, he pulled at it anyway, and then his cuticle bled.  He stuffed his hands back in his pockets and pressed the bloody nail against the fabric of his pants.

Lila said nothing as she finished and walked out of the room but not before sending another glance in Five's direction.  Diego found the expression on her face surprisingly unreadable, an emotion he had never seen on her features contorting them in a way that didn't fully suit her.  It almost looked like concern, but there were traces of something else underneath.

But then she was gone, and it was just Five and Diego in the room again.

”Do you want something to drink?“ Diego offered, starting with something easy, something he knew would lead to an easy answer.

”Yes,“ Five said easily.

And Diego poured him an easy glass of water from the tap.  Five drank it just as quickly as he had eaten the peanut butter sandwich.  Diego took the glass from him and set it in the sink while he tried to think of other easy things to say.

”Do you want anything else to eat?” 

“No.”  

The look on his face begged for something else, and although Diego had learned to trust the look on his face more than the words coming from his mouth, Diego just nodded in agreement.  He would need to make dinner soon anyway.

“You should probably sit down,” Diego began walking across the short hall to the living room.  Five followed and then sat awkwardly when Diego gestured to the couch.  He held his hand in his lap and clutched the fabric of his jeans tight enough to bleach his knuckles white.

Diego sat on the armchair next to the couch, bouncing his leg in anticipation.  He was running out of easy questions to ask, simple things to say, small conversations that might ease some of the tension in the room.  He was never very good at small talk.  A part of him wished Allison were here, but then he remembered the last time he had seen his sister and was swiftly glad she wasn't here.

Maybe Viktor would have handled this better, or even Klaus in his weird, eccentric ways.  It wouldn't have been so awkward at least, so tense.  Maybe if it was more than just Diego and Five, there might be someone else to ease some of the agony of the imminent conversation they were going to get to eventually.

Diego wasn't good at this kind of stuff.  He and Five had never been the closest when they were younger, although he figured it didn't really matter who was friends with who when they were still in the academy.  Those years were long gone, even longer gone for Five, who had grown up with his siblings as only faint memories and decaying bodies.

”How long have you been on the streets?“ Diego asked, easing into some of the bigger topics they needed to address.

Five leaned into the couch cushions, pressing his shoulders into the fraying plush fabric, and all but melting into the deteriorating sofa.  He looked so small compared to the average-sized furniture.  Five had always been small, even when they were younger, even when he came back sixteen years later, and especially now, one limb down and months of hunger.

”How long do you think?“ Five hissed more with a lack of any other tone rather than anger.  He bared his teeth and glared, but Diego couldn't bring himself to be intimidated.  It reminded him a lot of a stray cat.

Diego simply stared at him, not wanting to answer that question, and unable to come up with anything else to say.  

He knew what he thought, but he wanted to know the truth first, hoping maybe his predictions would've been off.  Maybe Five had found some sort of shelter early on and he had only been on the streets for a few months due to some unfortunate recent happenings.

The silence hung heavy.  Five said nothing else and yet it felt like he had said a million words with just his glare.

Diego couldn't stand the silence.  He hated it when he was younger, and he still hated it now.

”Why didn't you call?“ Diego tried, suddenly feeling like he was holding an interrogation of the world's most uncooperative criminal.  Five stared at him, gaze exhausted, yet unwavering, the food must have given him a little energy back.  Diego saw him clench his jaw and could almost feel him gearing up for a fight.  He stuffed his hand into his pocket and Diego heard the sound of paper crinkling.

”Why didn't you try to find me first?“ Five shot back ever eager.  

Question for a question, the same conversation over and over and yet no one was giving out any answers.  They danced around the inevitable and got nowhere closer to reaching a peace agreement.  Diego stared and wet his lips uncomfortably.

Why didn't he try to find Five?  Why didn't any of them try to find Five?  Why did his name never come up in any phone conversations except for the occasional fond memory of childhood?  Why didn't they do anything?  Why didn't they check up on him?

How could they have forgotten about their brother who was finally back after seventeen years?  Maybe they had just gotten used to his absence.  They had gotten so used to him being gone that no one really processed his return.  Especially not with all the chaos that came from his arrival.

“We just assumed that you would be fine,” Diego finally admitted, looking out the window so he didn't have to look Five in the eyes when he said it.  That was really all it was, wasn't it?  They thought he would be fine.  They just assumed he would get by like the rest of them, that he would survive and keep going like he had done his entire life.

They thought he would be fine.

He wasn't.

They should have checked up on him.

They shouldn't have abandoned him in the first place.

Diego swallowed thickly and couldn't bring himself to look at Five, who stayed silent for a long time.

“You thought I'd be fine,” Five finally muttered, sounding more shocked than anything.  He clicked his tongue and Diego saw him shift out of the corner of his eye.  “Because what, any thirteen-year-old child can survive just fine in a world where he doesn't exist?“

“You keep saying you're fifty-eight,” Diego tried to insist, gesturing to Five as if that would excuse everything.  Because Five was really a fifty-eight-year-old man who had lived his entire life in an apocalyptic hellscape.

“What do you think the rest of the world thinks, Diego?” Five snapped, staring at Diego as if he were the stupidest man in the world.  And maybe he was.  “My body is thirteen, I look eleven, and no one even believes that I'm real because I have no paperwork, no birth certificate, no legal parents, nothing.  What the hell am I supposed to do in a world where not a shred of my existence holds up in court?“

He was barely raising his voice, speaking in a pinched tone coming from right on the tip of his tongue, a hushed yell, anger simmering just under the surface like he didn't have the energy to really have this argument. But to Diego, he could have been shouting anyway.

”If you were struggling so badly, you could have just called one of us and we would have been happy to help,“ Diego told him, spreading his hands in a placating gesture.  He didn't understand why Five didn't just come to them for help when they both knew Five had the means to do so.

Diego took a deep breath, he wouldn't get angry, he wouldn't yell.  His brother didn't deserve to get yelled at, even if he could be so stupid sometimes.

”Maybe I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news this time, the harbinger of death and apocalyptic fallout,” Five licked his lips and stared right at Diego as he spoke, not feeling the same shame that caused him to stare at a point on the wall just behind his head.  “Because that seems to be all you think of me.  I've heard that one too many times before.”

Diego said nothing.  What could he say that wouldn't be a lie?  They had all had that thought before, in one way or another, whether fleeting or all-consuming, they had all thought it although only a few had been brave enough to ever say it, let alone to his face.

Diego swallowed thickly, clasped his hands in his lap, and remained silent for a while.

”Yeah, that's what I thought,“ Five mumbled and finally looked away from Diego, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his one arm around it protectively.  His right arm, the only arm he had left, his non-dominant arm.  How long did it take him to adjust to doing everything with his weaker arm?

”No one would have thought that now,“ Diego tried to say, although he wasn't sure if he fully believed that.  Things had been a little rocky this past year with everyone else.  They were all still getting adjusted to the new timeline, and Diego would admit to being a little nervous that something catastrophic was going to destroy everything again.  ”There's nothing in this timeline that we could interfere to destroy.“

Five scoffed at that, actually rolling his eyes at Diego as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

“You'd be surprised by how small things can lead to catastrophic outcomes,” Five said, for a moment, his old voice coming back to haunt Diego in his tone.  The same condescending tone of voice he used every time the topic of timelines and time travel came up.  

He knew that he knew more than them, and he never seemed to miss an opportunity to rub that in their face.  The facade fell as quickly as it appeared.  Five looked away, eyes dragging tiredly to the floor.

“Yeah, yeah, butterfly effect, whatever,” Diego waved his hand dismissively, this wasn't what the conversation was supposed to be about, “We're all still adjusting, but we would've been more than willing to help.  Klaus stayed with us for a couple weeks a few months ago when he had nowhere else to go.“  

Diego didn't even know why he was saying all this.  The past didn't matter.  The past year didn't mean anything.  The ' what if' s and the ' what could have been 's were irrelevant, especially coming from Diego to someone like Five.

Five hadn't asked for help, and Diego hadn't gone looking for him.  There was no other world in which that would have turned out any differently.  Five wasn't the type to rely on others, and Diego wasn't the type to go searching.  Simple as that.

”Why do you even care so much?“ Five asked, clenching his jaw.

Diego didn't have to think about his response, “Because you're my brother.“

”That hasn't seemed to stop any of us from fighting.”

“We keep coming back, don't we?” Diego tried, shrugging thoughtfully.  Because they do, don't they?  Eventually, they all come running back to the only people in the world who would ever know what it was like under Reginald Hargreeves' roof.

”What about this time?“ Five swallowed and wet his lips, picking at the fabric of his pants.  The look in his eyes conveyed his frustration. ”Where is everybody this time?“

Diego chewed on the inside of his mouth while he thought about an answer.

”It was like this before you came back,“ Diego tried to explain, not knowing how he would even begin to really articulate the years Five had missed out on.  ”Most of us left as soon as we could, before the funeral I hadn't talked to Luther, or Klaus, or Allison in months, even years.”

Five stared at him, hungry in the way a hawk looks right before it dives on an unsuspecting rabbit in the fields.

“This isn't much different,” Diego continued, gesturing wildly as if that might help, “But we all come back eventually, even you did.  We thought you were dead.“

”And what did you think this time?“ Five shot back, reminding Diego of the conversation they were meant to be having, and the situation they had both found themselves in.  Five hugged his knees to his chest harder and clutched his fingers around the fabric of his pants.  “You knew I wasn’t dead.”

Diego swallowed thickly and pressed his lips into a thin line, staring at Five with a miserable expression.

There wasn’t any point in lying.  Five knew the truth without Diego even saying anything.

“I thought you’d come back like you always do,” Diego said slowly, not looking Five in the eyes, “You’d get us all back together like some Valkyrie of the apocalypse and we’d be thrown right back in it again.”

“Like I always do…” Five muttered, halfway to himself.  He shook his head in disbelief, hugging himself tighter.  He was silent for a beat, and then:  “Don’t you think I’m tired, Diego?”  

The rawness of the statement caused Diego to stutter.

“W—What?”

“I’m tired,” Five admitted more honestly than Diego had ever heard him as he leaned over his knees but not fully resting his chin.  “I wanted to retire, I wanted to be done with all this, the fighting, the running, the surviving.  I just wanted to have my family back.”

What could Diego say to a confession like that?

“You have your family back now,” Diego mumbled, the statement sounding lame coming from his mouth in the middle of their shabby living room.  He could hear the faucet dripping in the kitchen and the neighbor’s television blaring some game show.

The silence seemed to stretch for a long, long time.

Five looked at him, his face revealing every single year he spent trapped in that desolate wasteland.  Diego wondered how Five felt, knowing the last time he had seen his siblings alive they had all been thirteen together, and now his siblings were thirty and he was fifty-eight trapped in a thirteen-year-old body.  Had he been disappointed?  Surprised? Grieving?  Regretful?  Or had he felt nothing at all upon seeing his adult siblings, no longer children, and no longer the same siblings he had known.

Oh, how the years had torn them apart.  All of them.  Not just Five.

Five sighed and then turned away. 

Neither of them said anything after that.

Five stared at some point a few feet away on the floor.  Diego watched the second hand of the clock tick by, too afraid to move in case he broke the delicate spell that had fallen over them.

A minute passed, and then Five inhaled sharply and finally moved, unfolding his legs in front of himself.

“I shouldn’t have called you,” Five declared, gripping the edge of the couch tightly as he used it as an anchor to stand up.  He trembled as he stood, knees knocking together as he wobbled to keep himself balanced.  He wasn’t looking at Diego anymore, refusing to even look in his direction, his eyes trained on the ground, or on the sparsely decorated walls.

That broke Diego out of his stupor and shocked him into motion like he had just gotten dunked in an ice bath.  He stood quicker than Five was able to even catch his balance on the edge of the couch.

“Wait,” Diego said, his tongue forming useless sounds in his mouth.  He took a step forward and closed the distance between them, his hand reaching out to wrap around Five’s bicep. “Don’t go.”

‘I just got you back.  I can’t lose you again .’ The words lodged in Diego’s throat, choking him with a snake-like grip.

Surprisingly, Five didn’t jerk away like Diego thought he would.  His shoulder tensed and he clenched his hand into a fist.  It was a knee-jerk reaction that Diego knew would have landed him halfway across the room if they still had their powers.

But, incidentally, they didn't have their powers, and so Five remained in the same spot, simmering silently.

“We—We have space on the couch,” Diego fumbled, grasping at straws to find a way to keep his brother here, to prevent him from leaving and abandoning him again.  “Spare blankets, spare clothes, you can take a shower and get cleaned up.” He could barely hear the words coming out of his mouth, his ears ringing as he focused completely and solely on his arm on Five's bicep, the only thing connecting him to his brother at the moment.

Five stared at the ground.  He didn't move.  Didn't wrench his arm away, or storm out of the apartment.  Didn't shout at Diego to let go of him, or hiss sharp insults that left wounds deeper than knives.  He stood almost like a statue, barely breathing, trembling minutely.

And then, “I don't need your pity.“  He glared, taking a shallow, shaky breath that rattled his entire body.

Diego didn't know what to do.

”It's not pity,“ He begged, squeezing Five's arm a little tighter, like if he let go, he would disappear and Diego would never see him again, just like what had happened seventeen years ago.

“Thank you for coming to pick me up,” Five continued as if he hadn't heard Diego at all, although there was something in his voice that Diego rarely heard from him.  There was a small tremor, something high-pitched hiding behind his words.  He sounded nonchalant, although his posture and expression conveyed anything but.  “But I'll be fine on my own.”

He was lying through his teeth, his voice trembling as he glared at the ground.  Five could barely stand without swaying, every step was forced and limped, he couldn't hide the way his stomach still grumbled in agony every once in a while.  And Diego still couldn't get the scene out of his mind of grasping at his empty sweatshirt sleeve.  

Five still made no move to pull away from Diego, although he tensed his shoulder, still clenching his fists in a tight ball, as if that might help get him out of this situation.

If Diego let him go, he would never see Five again.  He was sure of that.  

Maybe he'd see him as a passing face in the newspapers or on the news, but never like this, never right there in front of his eyes, close enough for him to touch, yet still so far away he didn't know how to reach.

They had let it get this bad and they didn't even notice.  He had been gone fifty years, a time that only ever felt like seventeen to them.  And in the time he had been back, they had spent it running, fighting, and hating each other, only really getting along when absolutely necessary.

Five had known their deaths longer than he had known what they would be like alive.  And Diego had known Five's absence longer than he had ever been present.

How could Five ever know his siblings as anything but corpses?  And how could Diego ever know Five as anything but a portrait hanging above the mantel?

He couldn't lose Five again.  Not like this.

“Five, I'm sorry,” Diego admitted in full earnest, the words sitting heavy in his mouth, his hands shaking as he held onto Five's arm.  ”Let me help you.”

He hadn't been able to do that seventeen years ago before Five had disappeared.  He hadn't been able to help when he showed up years later in the same thirteen-year-old body they had lost him in.  He barely helped when Five tried to save the world, again, and again, and again.

And still, Diego had missed his chance a year ago when they had all stumbled out of that elevator into this new, strange, and unfortunate timeline.  

They had all walked away, moving onto new and grander things forgetting about their brother whom they always seemed to leave behind.

This was no apocalypse, but it wasn't any better either.  Instead of the corpses that had been haunting him unmoving and slowly decaying, he was haunted by the walking, talking, and breathing shadows of the people he had dedicated his life to saving.  And they tossed him away like he was nothing.

“Please,” Diego begged, and then, before he could even think about what he was saying, before his brain could actually catch up to what his voice wanted, ”Don't go, not again.”

Five visibly tensed.

A few seconds passed, then a few more.  A beat of silence, the air conditioning kicked on loudly.  Tentatively, Diego slowly relaxed his grip on Five's arm, scared he would bolt the second Diego wasn't holding onto him anymore.  He dropped his hand back to his side, taking a step away from Five, giving him space.

His heart pounded in his chest, a familiar aching feeling threatening to swallow him whole.  A mix of dread and panic in the pit of his stomach as he watched and waited.

Five's knees trembled, although he didn't move from his spot, swaying softly.  He had nothing left, no fight, no energy, nothing.  He was out of options for shelter and food, he had already gotten arrested enough times he needed someone to bail him out of jail.  He was nothing more than skin and bones in a world that didn't believe he deserved to exist.  Even the apocalypse would have been kinder than this.

Whatever fight he seemed to have left drained in an instant.  Five sighed, scrubbing at his face with his dirty palms, wiping away tears Diego hadn't even realized were welling up in the corners of his eyes.

He said nothing, but Diego knew what that meant nonetheless.

He reached out and tentatively put his hand on Five's arm once again, pulling him closer until his arm was over his shoulders.  It wasn't a hug, but it was close enough, with Five pressed against his side, and Diego's arm slung over his shoulder.  He guided him back to the couch and urged him to sit down.

”I don't need your help,” Five tried to insist, although he made no protest to being back on the rickety old couch.

“Consider it payment for saving the world,“ Diego replied, still a little shaken up and unable to hide it from his voice as he tried to save what little there was to salvage of Five's dignity.  Five sniffled and huffed, turning away from Diego and pulling his knees back up to his chest.

”Sure,“ Five mumbled, although he seemed to relax at that.

”I'll go find you some spare clothes,“ Diego said, almost scared to let Five out of his sight for an extended period of time.  

What if he still tried to leave anyway?  There would be very little Diego could do to find him again, and even if he did, there wasn't much Diego could do to force Five to stay here.  He could stay the night and leave in the morning before Diego woke up, and there would be nothing he could do about it.

”Okay,“ Five shuddered and curled in on himself, looking so much smaller in clothes that didn't fit him properly.  Lila probably had some extra clothes that would fit.  She probably wouldn't notice at least until tomorrow morning.

Reluctantly, Diego made his way out of the living room, shuffling down the hall to his and Lila's shared bedroom where he figured he would find Lila.  If she wasn't in the kitchen secretly eavesdropping on their conversation, she would be in the bedroom, also probably eavesdropping.

She was sitting on the bed when Diego entered, pretending to read a book.  She had definitely been listening.  The apartment had thin walls.

“So he's staying here?” Lila asked as Diego entered, shutting the door behind him to maybe give them a little more privacy, not that he figured Five would be listening in.

“He has nowhere else to go,” Diego insisted, realizing he probably should have discussed this with Lila first before making any decisions.  Well, Diego wasn't going to let Lila say no anyway, not even she could be that heartless.  And hey, Five and Lila had been maybe starting to get along the last time they had been together.

And maybe motherhood had softened Lila, just a little bit.

”Make sure he doesn't have fleas.”

Maybe not.

”He doesn't,” Diego insisted, although he was pretty sure Lila had been joking with that comment.  “Do you have anything he can wear?“  There was no way Five would fit into any of Diego's clothes.  He might even be a little too small for Lila's, but it was the best they had.

Lila gave Diego a look that seemed anything but pleased, although she softened after a second once she saw the worried look on Diego's face.

“I don't know, there's stuff in the closet,” she waved her hand dismissively in the direction of their closet.

Diego pulled open the closet door as quietly as he could, not wanting to disturb Gracie who for the most part was being a very good baby today, especially given the circumstances.  He was ever grateful not only that Lila was here to take care of her, but that Gracie wasn't being too fussy either.

In the closet, there were rows of various articles of clothing, Lila's on the left side and Diego's on the right side of the closet.  Diego didn't really do much with Lila's clothes unless he was putting laundry away, but he tried to remember what she had and if there would be anything small enough for Five to wear.

After searching through the rows of hangers, Diego picked out a soft sweater that Lila complained didn't fit her anymore, and a pair of sweatpants that hopefully wouldn't be too big.  They had a drawstring around the waist so at least he could tie it so it wouldn't fall down.

“If the couch isn't comfortable, there might be a mat or something in Gracie's room that would be nicer,” Lila called out right before Diego left the room.  He held his hand above the doorknob, processing her words for a few moments.

“Okay,” Diego said, almost surprised.

Then he left the room, shutting the door softly behind him and returning to the living room.  He held his breath as he turned the corner, relief flooding into his chest the moment he saw the messy brown hair barely visible above the back of the couch.  Diego sighed in relief, the noise causing Five to flinch.

“Hopefully these will fit,” Diego said, walking over to the couch and placing the clothes on the back of it.  Five turned, blinking slowly and rubbing his eyes blearily.

”Thanks,“ he mumbled, still slightly on guard.

”Bathroom is down the hall on the right,“ Diego continued, doing his best to focus only on the practical things at the moment.  He didn't know how many more emotional conversations he could take for the rest of the day.  “There should be some clean towels in there so you can shower.”

Five just stared at him for a few seconds, almost as if he wasn't processing what Diego had said.  Diego waited patiently, letting him get his bearings.  He looked more exhausted than when Diego had first seen him if that was somehow even possible.

Then, he understood, eyes shifting into that of relief, although Diego could still see his slight apprehension in the way that he kept looking back and forth between the offered clothes and Diego's face like he thought there would be some kind of catch.

Hesitantly, Five reached out with his right hand, scooping the sweater and sweatpants into his arms and tucking it close to his chest, his fingers rubbing the soft knitted fabric.  He leaned his elbow against the side of the couch, using that to push himself up to his feet, his hip digging into the side of the couch.

He grimaced, and Diego barely heard the aborted hiss of pain he tried to hide.

“I'm going to start making dinner, spaghetti sound okay?” Diego asked, doing his best to be casual, not like his entire perception of this new timeline had just been flipped on its head the moment he realized what his brother had been up to.

“That's fine,” Five mumbled, although Diego doubted he would admit it if it wasn't.  Diego didn't remember having spaghetti that often when they were younger, although those nights had always been a treat.  Spaghetti nights were pretty much the most common dinner now, it was easy to make and would last a couple days, saving them the time and effort of making another dinner from scratch every day.

Trying not to make it obvious that he was waiting for Five to make it to the bathroom, Diego occupied himself with organizing the side table next to the couch, idly shuffling some papers that had been left there, stuffing some leftover trash in his pockets. 

Like a suspicious cat, Five made his way down the hallway, finding the bathroom with ease.  The door shut behind him and the lock latching into place was louder than anything else in the entire apartment.

Diego let out a breath he didn't even realize he had been holding and finally made his way into the kitchen, tossing out the bits of trash he had collected from the side table.  The kitchen was still dirty from when he had made lunch, and he silently moved the pan from the stove and into the sink where piles of dirty dishes were already gathering from last night.  

He should probably take care of some of those before it got really bad.  Maybe start the dishwasher while he started to cook dinner.

The sound of the shower sputtering to life in the bathroom made him reconsider.  He could wait until after dinner.

Instead, Diego worked on making spaghetti, something he had become exceptionally good at these past few months.  While Lila had been in the last stage of her pregnancy, Diego had been doing a lot of cooking, and a lot of strange cooking as well.  He was okay at it.  Nothing special.  Enough to make something edible and get by.

He filled a somewhat clean pot with water and let it heat up on the stove.  While he waited, he sat down at the kitchen table, sitting with his head resting on his elbow.

Diego heard the bedroom door open and then Lila's footsteps in the hall, stopping by the bathroom for a few moments and listening to the sound of water running.  Then she entered the kitchen.

“What has he been doing this past year?” Lila asked, hovering by the entrance of the kitchen, not fully stepping closer.

“I don't know, he's been out on the streets, stealing food I guess,” Diego bounced his leg under the table, barely turning to face Lila while he spoke.

”Didn't he survive fifty years in the apocalypse or something like that?“ Lila continued, shuffling over the stove to peer into the pot of water Diego had just placed there.  She fiddled with the dials on the stove and then approached Diego.

”This isn't an apocalypse,“ Diego said, not really understanding where Lila was going with this.

”Guess not,“ Lila sat down at the table, picking at the peeling wood. It was a gift from her parents, their old, twenty-year-old table so they could finally get a new one.  They would never say no to free furniture.

”He had all our phone numbers in his pocket,“ Diego said, not sure why he was telling all this to Lila.  He figured there was no one else to say it to, and maybe saying it out loud might help him understand better.  ”This entire time, and he didn't call until he physically had to.“

“How typical.“

Five hadn't called because he wanted them to come looking.  He was waiting to see what his family would do, what his siblings would do.  Once it was clear they weren't going to do something about his disappearance, then it became a challenge.  He didn't want to rely on them, he had never liked to rely on others for anything.  He genuinely thought he could handle it.

Clearly not.

“I should've done something,” Diego muttered nothing but regret filling his tone.  He should have.  He wished he had done something.  But he never did.  Not when they were younger, not when he started to get older and realized Five wasn't coming back, not when Five did actually come back, and not when they lost Five again for a second time. 

He never did anything.

He was doing something now.  He might not be able to fix seventeen and fifty years of not doing anything.  But he might be able to make up for some lost time, some past mistakes, and some past nothings he had done.

They could go shopping on Friday for some clothes for Five and anything else he might need.  They didn't have a lot of money, but he needed something that would fit that wasn't just Lila's clothes.  He could stay on the couch for a little bit, or the mat in Gracie's room as well.  They might even be able to get an extra mattress from somewhere, even a blowup mattress and he could be set up in the nursery for now, a room that was barely used since Gracie spent a lot of time in their bedroom.

They'd figure something out, Diego would figure something out.  Because he was going to make this better.

“We all should have done something different,” Lila mused, leaning back in the chair and staring up at the wall across from her.

Diego hummed in some sort of agreement, listening to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, water spraying against mildewed tiles.  He could hear the air conditioning rattling in the air ducts, the entire building giving off the illusion of trembling.

Even the stove creaked and groaned, heat coursing through the electric coils as it slowly warmed up the large pot of water Diego had placed on it, taking its sweet time to heat up.  So many idle noises taunting him, making it impossible for him to think.

When he had nearly dug a hole through the floor from bouncing his leg under the table, Diego stood up and moved to the stove.  He grabbed a spoon from the drawer, absently stirring the water as if that might help.  He just needed something to do.

He tried to start making the pasta sauce, although there wasn't much he could do while the water was still boiling.  Most of the spaghetti consisted of store-bought sauce and noodles, there wasn't much else he added.  Maybe some garlic and some other seasonings.  Sometimes he would add ground beef to the sauce, but they hadn't gone shopping in a few days and didn't have anything in the freezer.  So it would be some pretty bland spaghetti.

Once the water was boiling he put the noodles in the pot and let them cook, sitting, waiting, and running the events of the past few hours over and over in his head.  

Lila popped in and out of the kitchen, sometimes with Gracie, awake and chattering, cooing softly.  The shower eventually turned off and he could hear Five moving around the bathroom.

Diego had his daughter in his arms when Five finally finished in the bathroom, Lila excused herself and traded places with Five, shutting herself up in the bathroom.  The kid leaving the bathroom and entering the kitchen looked completely different from the kid who had walked into that bathroom.

The small sheet of dirt that had been covering his skin was gone, and his cheeks were a deep shade of red, scrubbed raw and still slightly damp from the water.  His hair was wet, clinging to his forehead and dampening the back of Lila's sweater he now wore.  It seemed so much longer now that it was wet, falling down past his shoulders, but no longer as tangled as it was before.

He shuffled into the kitchen awkwardly, holding up the sweatpants with his right hand, the other sleeve of the sweater hanging limply.  Five didn't look at Diego when he entered, and Diego couldn't tell if his cheeks darkened from embarrassment, or if it was already red from the shower.

The bags under his eyes were more pronounced once the dirt had been washed from his sickly pale skin.  And Diego could see all the bruises and scrapes on his face and upper shoulders so much clearer now.  He looked every bit the tired old man that Diego knew him to be.

He wondered if this was what Five looked like during the apocalypse, or if this is what he would have looked like had that kid been given a shower or something to wash off with.  Diego wasn't sure he wanted to know.  No, actually, he knew wholeheartedly he did not want to know what Five had looked like during the apocalypse.  He didn't know if he could handle it.

Gracie cooed softly in Diego's arms and as soon as he heard her, Diego noticed Five's eyes snap over to both of them.  He shifted his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably, leaning subtly against the counter.  Diego looked down at his daughter, and then to his brother.

”This is Gracie,“ Diego said softly, bouncing her gently in his arms, a half smile on his lips.

”Oh,“ Five said, ever the man of words.  He remained standing at the entrance to the kitchen, awkward, and looking like he had no idea what to do with himself.  He stared at his niece as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

Five had never had the chance to meet either of his nieces before.  Diego was sure he had never met Claire in this timeline either. 

There was always a first for everything.

Diego waved Five over.  Hesitantly, he approached, like a startled cat prepared to be pounced on.

“Do you want to hold her?” Diego offered, the words so foreign to him, and yet they seemed so natural.  Even if he knew Five had been a trained assassin for five years of his life, lasting even longer defending himself against whatever the apocalypse might have thrown at him, he was sure Five could be trusted with his daughter.

Five had a conflicted look on his face that seemed to convey somewhere in the middle of 'I would rather do anything else' and 'there is nothing I could want more'.

After a beat, and a visible internal debate to put his words together, Five finally settled on, ”I don't think I can.“

Diego opened his mouth to ask why, but then Five shifted his left shoulder, barely moving the stump of the arm he had left. 

Oh, right.

Well, there had to be something they could do.

“Here, come sit down,” Diego bounced Gracie in his arms, standing from his spot at the kitchen table to move into the living room. 

Five, unsure and confused, followed Diego silently, shuffling his bare feet along the floor.  Even his feet seemed bruised, although Diego couldn't even begin to imagine how or why that happened.

As instructed, Five sat down on the couch, looking a lot like he had just swallowed a frog, apprehension obvious on his face.  Diego remembered Five always being hard to read, although now his discomfort was almost painfully obvious.

“Cross your legs,” Diego knelt down in front of the couch, ending up right in front of Five as he plopped down onto the old couch.

Five did so, shifting nervously and adjusting his posture as best he could, constantly fidgeting with the sleeve of his sweater.

“Hold your arm like this,” Diego adjusted Five's right arm to the correct position, “I'll put her in your lap, cradle her head with your elbow.”  It was easy enough to hold a baby like this when sitting down.  Diego had done it plenty of times, and Lila had allowed some of her younger cousins to do the same when they visited her family. 

Five chewed on the inside of his mouth, visibly tensing as Diego gently laid Gracie in his lap, adjusting her so Five could cradle her with his one remaining arm, her head resting on the crook of his elbow.  

Five froze like a deer in the headlights, staring down at the baby in his arms like he was afraid to move, like if he did anything, she would perish.

If the situation were any different, Diego might find it funny.

“You can relax, you won't hurt her,“ Diego insisted, sitting back on his knees, still crouched in front of the couch just in case something went wrong.  Five shivered, still tense, holding himself awkwardly in a way that couldn't be comfortable.

Very gently, very cautiously, Five used his right hand to softly stroke Gracie's leg, the only place he could reach given the current position.  She wiggled a little and cooed, peering up at Five with curious eyes.  Thankfully she didn't cry, not like when Klaus held her the first time, but she sat there diligently and just stared.

It seemed very appropriate because Five stared right back, just as awestruck by the tiny human in his arms as she was of the only marginally larger stranger holding her.

Five swallowed thickly, and only then did Diego realize he had started tearing up.  He blinked to rid himself of the tears, rubbing his face against his left bicep.

”She seems to like you,“ Diego commented with a lack of anything else to say.  He didn't really know, but at least she wasn't crying, and she didn't seem to have any complaints about Five, although she was too young to really voice her opinions.

”She looks like you,“ Five mumbled, barely acknowledging Diego had said something first.

”You think so?“ Diego smiled at that, unsure if Five actually meant that or if he was just saying it out of bias, ”Lila's family all think she looks like her.“

Five opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped, and changed his mind.

”Maybe she does look a lot more like Lila now that you mention it.”

There was the Five he was familiar with.  Always trying to get on everyone's nerves.

“Hey!” Diego exclaimed, more relieved than anything just to see Five's snarky smile, the ghost of what almost sounded like a laugh spilling from his lips.

Five went back to admiring Gracie, stroking her leg gently, his hand moving up and down with shaky jerky motions.

“Dinner is probably gonna be ready soon,” Diego said, “I can take her and put her in her chair if you'd like.”

Diego saw Five hesitate.

”Or you can stay here and I'll finish up dinner, that's fine,“ he added quickly.

”You can take her,“ Five decided, his cheeks reddening minutely.

Giving him another few seconds to change his mind, Diego slowly lifted Gracie from his arms, cradling her against his chest the way he had been doing previously.  Tension Diego didn't even realize Five had been holding immediately drained from his shoulders like a million pounds had been lifted from him.

He knew Five was nervous, he didn't realize how nervous he really was.

”Go sit at the table,“ Diego said, pushing himself up to his feet, and bouncing his daughter in his arms.  Five said nothing else and merely nodded, standing just as precariously as all the other times he had forced himself to stand.  He followed Diego back into the kitchen where Diego set Gracie up in the small reclining chair near the table.

She wasn't old enough to sit in the high chair they had, but they wanted to keep her close when they were eating dinner just in case.

The spaghetti was pretty much finished, Diego mixed the noodles and the sauce together in the pan, waiting for Lila to return from the bathroom.  Five sat down at one of the empty spots at the table, curling in on himself while pretending not to be staring at Gracie in her chair.

Diego had already made extra spaghetti in hopes that it would last them tomorrow's dinner as well, so he scooped an extra portion onto Five's plate, setting it in front of him with a small thud.

”You can eat, I'll wait for Lila,“ He said, knowing how hungry Five must still be.  A sandwich a few hours ago would do little to stave the pangs of hunger Five would have been dealing with for however long.

Five ate silently, digging into the plate of spaghetti hungrily.  Lila returned only a few minutes later, sitting down next to Diego at the table like normal to eat the plate of pasta Diego had placed at her spot.

Dinner was spent mostly in silence.  Lila asked a few questions to Five and was met with short few few-word answers.  Diego tried to make small talk, trying to clear the awkwardness in the room, although it didn't seem to last very long.

Diego wanted to avoid the subject of where Five had been this last year.  Lila seemed to ask nothing but questions about it.  Diego couldn't tell if she was just curious, or if she was trying to antagonize him now he was clean and had a little more energy.

“How long were you on the streets?” 

Was met with: ”Do the math.“

”What did you eat?“

”Food.“

“How'd you get arrested?“

”Stealing.“

”Not what did you get arrested for, how did they catch you?“

”I was careless.“

”Why didn't you just come find one of your siblings earlier?“

Diego wanted Lila to stop talking, he really wished she would just let the subject drop.  He had barely convinced Five to stay, his own pride barely allowing himself to accept any sort of help Diego offered.

In response to her last question, Five just frowned down at his plate, glaring into the half-eaten plate of spaghetti.  Diego was sure he would have blinked away by now if they still had their powers, and he was sure that Lila, in all her pettiness and disagreements with Five, would have followed.

But they would have never been in this situation if they still had their powers.  Because Five would have been doing a lot better if he still had his spatial jumps.  He would have been able to steal food, find places to stay, and get out of rough fights or encounters with the police so much easier, especially outside of an apocalypse when food was abundant and it was easier to replenish his energy.

“Why didn't any of my siblings think to look for me?” Five finally snapped, and Diego had a feeling that was the much more civil response he could have come up with.

Before Lila could respond to that question, something they had already talked about an hour before, Diego interrupted, doing his best to change the subject, filling the awkwardness with the only thing he could think of that wasn't their current situation.

“Lila has been working at redecorating the nursery these last few days,” Diego blurted, nearly dropping his fork on the ground with how fast he put it down, “I can show you after dinner.”

Five said nothing, although his mood had been thoroughly soured.  He didn't say anything else for the rest of dinner.

Diego shot Lila a look, and she just shrugged, turning back to her meal.  He tried to make awkward conversations with both of them, although Lila was the only one responding now.  Five just ate his portion of spaghetti, barely looking up from the plate.  Diego felt like he had somehow failed at something even though Lila was the one to antagonize him.

“Do you want any more?” Diego asked when Five finished his plate.  He and Lila had finished a few minutes prior and Lila was busy making another bottle for Gracie.

“No,” Five mumbled, rubbing his left arm, squeezing it tightly, almost as if a way to calm himself down.  Almost as an afterthought, Five added as well, “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it,” Diego said, clearing the plates from the table and putting them in the sink with the other dirty dishes.

Once the table was clear and the leftovers were tucked away in the fridge for tomorrow, Diego set to work at gathering some extra pillows and blankets for Five to sleep with tonight.  It was getting pretty late and Diego was sure Five wanted to get some rest.  It had been a long day and who knew the last time Five had managed to get some actual rest.  Probably not since... well probably not since he was actually thirteen.

Either way, that meant an early night in was in order.

They didn't have a lot of extra blankets since they rarely had guests, let alone overnight guests, and most of the other blankets were either in the nursery or on their own bed.  But Diego managed to scrounge up some that would hopefully be warm.

“It gets kind of cold in the apartment at night,” Diego told Five while he spread the blankets over the couch, his brother watching silently from a few feet away, his arm wrapped around his torso.  “Let me know if you need any more blankets, there might be some in the nursery.”

If Five nodded, Diego wasn't looking, but he didn't say anything in the affirmative.  Diego continued on as if he had.

”If the pillow is super uncomfortable there's a different one in the closet down the hall,“ Diego said, patting the pillow on the couch, it was a little lumpy but he was sure it would work fine.  It wasn't too bad, just an extra they had tucked away in the closet of their bedroom once they got some new pillows.

”Okay,“ Five mumbled, shifting his weight from foot to foot awkwardly.

Diego wasn't so sure what to do now.  ”If you need anything, our bedroom is on the left.”  He gestured down the hall and then turned to Five, who was staring at the couch with an unknown expression.

“Okay,” He agreed, taking a few rattling breaths.

“Get some sleep,” Diego couldn't help but reach out, patting Five on the shoulder, squeezing gently.  Five felt so small, almost as if he wasn't real.  “I'll see you in the morning.”

“Right...” Five just twitched his head in a faint nod, plopping down on the couch the moment Diego moved away, letting him go.

“Goodnight, Five,“ Diego said, shuffling away from the couch to the hallway.  This was the moment of unpredictability, the uncertainty, the time he was finally diving into the unknown.  The entire time before, Diego had Five in his line of sight, he had a surefire way of making sure he didn't leave.

Now though?  Diego had to go to sleep eventually, and he was sure Five wouldn't get any sleep if he knew Diego was watching him.  There was nothing he could do.  If Five decided to leave, that was his decision and there was nothing Diego could do to stop him.

The only hope he would have to see Five again would be if his brother decided to contact him again. 

But that was only if he left.  There was a chance he wouldn't.  There was always the chance Five would stay and accept the help Diego had offered under the guise of paying him back for saving the world.  But Five wasn't the most well-known for staying in one place, or time, for very long.  It was in his nature.  He wasn't meant to settle down.

Diego just had to hope that when he turned off the lights and went to bed, Five would still be there in the morning.

”Goodnight,“ Five said from his place on the couch, shuffling underneath the blankets Diego had provided, pulling them all the way up to his chin and snuggling down onto the pillow.  Diego turned off the light and retreated down the hall to their bedroom, feeling every bit like he was saying goodbye.

Gracie was already asleep when he entered the room.  Lila was lying down, waiting for him, although Diego figured she wasn't asleep just yet.

”Is he going to stay?“ Lila asked, her back facing Diego.

”I hope so,“ Diego admitted, sliding underneath the covers.

”I think it would kill him to accept help like a normal person,“ Lila grumbled, although she didn't have much right to comment.  It wasn't like she knew the full extent, she barely knew Five.  The entire time they had known each other, they had been at each other's throats, barely agreeing long enough to save the world.

But, even so, Diego barely knew Five either.  Five had been gone most of his life, and in the time he had been back, it wasn't like there was much time to stop and get to know his brother either.  It was one thing after the next, constantly on the run, constantly moving.

He had only had himself to rely on for the longest time, long enough he probably didn't know what it was like to have someone else help him.  He probably didn't know how.  Diego hadn't been exactly the most helpful example either.

Instead of voicing any of that, Diego just mumbled, “Probably.”

”My turn for breakfast tomorrow?“ Lila asked, changing the subject.

”I think so.”  Diego had made breakfast this morning, and so if Lila was offering to make it tomorrow, he definitely wasn't going to say no.

“Okay, goodnight,” Lila said, pushing herself up on the elbows just enough to lean over and give Diego a kiss which Diego melted into it.

”Goodnight,“ He responded, turning the lamp at his bedside table off and flopping down onto the pillows.

It took a long time for Diego to fall asleep.  He tossed and turned for most of the night, imagining different scenarios that would greet him when he finally woke up and made his way into the living room.

He imagined the couch empty and Five long gone, nothing to show of his visit besides some rumpled blankets and dirty clothes.  He imagined never hearing from his brother again, only to discover that something happened to him on the news later.  He imagined the living room ransacked, stuff stolen and pillaged, food taken from the kitchen, and whatever small valuables they had nabbed.  

But Five wouldn't do that.  He stole when he needed to, but Diego figured he would never do that to his own siblings.

Eventually, the tossing and turning turned into a restless, dreamless sleep.

Morning came swiftly and Diego prepared himself for the worst.

He woke up before Lila when the sun was barely even a thought in the sky.  His restlessness and anxiety had gotten himself worked up, rising the moment a beam of light streaked into their room. 

Diego pushed himself up and out of bed as quietly as he could so as to not to disturb her or Gracie.  Then he shuffled out of the bedroom, down the hall, and to the living room, cautiously, as if he were prepared to walk into a murder scene.

Diego entered, peered around the edge of the couch, and let out a breath of relief he didn't even realize he was holding.

Five was still there, asleep on the couch, blankets tangled around him, beginning to fall off the couch as he curled up on his side.  He was snoring softly, his face pressed into the pillow, hair splayed around his head like some kind of dark halo.

He was still here.  He hadn't run away in the middle of the night, disappearing without a trace where Diego would never find him again.

Diego felt instantly lighter.

There was no point in waking Five up before breakfast was ready, instead, he fixed the blankets around him, pulling them back up over his shoulders, tucking him in gently, letting him sleep.

After confirming there was nothing to be worried about, Diego crept back into the bedroom, deciding he could get another hour or so of sleep before he really had to get up and start the day.

His brother was still there, despite everything, Diego didn't have to spend another morning grieving the loss of his brother who in a way, had never been there, and had always been there at the same time.

Now they were both here, in the same spot, in the same time, and they both had a lot more work to do.  But that could wait until the sun was fully up.  Diego wanted to make up for the night he had spent worrying with at least another hour of sleep.