apocalypsehow | A Street in the Countryside

So they had a plan. A dumb plan, but they had one. Kind of.

And since Luther was being stubborn, he was along for the ride. Or Five was since Luther insisted on driving.

"You know, I never enjoyed it," Five said apropos of nothing but his own thoughts.

Luther	"Enjoyed what?" he asked as he pulled the car over near the meeting spot.
Five	"The killing." Obviously. "I mean, I was good at my work and I took pride in it, but it never gave me pleasure," Five admitted with a sigh. "I think it was all those years alone. Solitude can do funny things to the mind." Like Dolores.
Luther	Was Five...sharing emotions? Oh god, Luther didn't even know how to respond to that. "Yeah, well, you were gone for such a long time," he said, a touch awkwardly. "I only spent four years on the moon and that was more than enough. It's the being alone that breaks you." He cleared his throat and gestured to the briefcase. "You'll think they'll buy it?"
Five	No one would believe him if he snitched. "Well, what I do know is that they're desperate. It's like a cop losing his gun," Five replied. "If the Commission finds out, they'll be in deep shit. Oh, not to mention the fact that they'll be stuck here until they get it back." Also a big deal. Considering the looming apocalypse and all.
Luther	"I should hold on to it," Luther said. "In case they make a move on you." And to tempt them into attacking Luther instead of Five, but he wasn't going to say that out loud.
Five	Oh, that was precious of him. "Okay, Luther, but be careful. I mean, I've lived a long life, but you're still a young man." He was just going to ignore the side-eye Luther was giving him for this speech. "You've got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it." He let out a little sigh as he spotted the car Hazel and Cha Cha must have grabbed to use. "Here we go."
Luther	Luther was actually glad that Hazel and Cha Cha arrived because he had absolutely not idea how to respond to that. He got out of the car, gripping onto the briefcase like it could actually be used to time travel and wasn't just a decoy.
Five	Take his damn advice you little shit. "If this goes sideways, do me a favor and tell Dolores I'm sorry." Also, what was Luther supposed to do with that, Five? At least he again didn't need to respond as Haze and Cha Cha in their ridiculous masks came closer. "Are the masks really necessary?"
Cha Cha	No, but they were cool. "So where is it, kid?" Cha Cha asked, tossing her mask aside.
Five	They weren't cool at all. "Wow, is that how you're gonna start?" Five replied, not enjoying this disrespect. You were his low rent replacements, do you understand that? "You know, we can get right back in our car and call it a day."
Hazel & Cha Cha	"You won't make it halfway there." Was there a no guns rule? Too bad, because both Hazel and Cha Cha brought them.
Five	"Maybe," Five replied, not looking particularly worried about it. "But I'm sure as you found out in your previous foray, my brother is not the average giant."
Hazel	"He's right," Hazel said. "You dropped a chandelier on him and he got right back up." He was kind of jealous.
Five	"By the time you took him out, he'd smash your precious briefcase to a pulp," Five said, not even having to look at Luther to confirm it. Mostly because he wasn't about to do that in front of these idiots.
Hazel	"Probably us too, right?" Hazel knew how this threatening thing worked. "So how do we help each other?"
Five	"I need you to get in contact with your superior so I can have a chat with her. Face to face." And fix this. If possible.
Cha Cha	"About what?" Cha Cha asked.
Five	"Well I don't believe that's any of your concern," Five replied like he was talking to a child. And not, you know, looking like one.
Cha Cha	That's okay, because Cha Cha was responding like a child. "...just don't tell her about the briefcase." They'd be in sooooo much troubleeeeee.
Five	"Fair enough," Five said with a little shrug.
Luther	Luther watched as Hazel and Cha Cha went back to their own car so they could contact their boss. "What happens now?" he asked.
Five	"Now we wait." And, you know what? This was going too well. Suspiciously so. Which was why the ridiculous bell chiming of an ice cream truck in the distance shouldn't have at all come as a surprise.
Luther	Was that the ice cream truck version of "Ride of the Valkyries"? "Is that...is that her?" Dumbass.
Klaus	Starting a fine tradition of passing an incredulous sibling in a vehicle, Klaus beamed and waved as he and Diego drove on past in their stolen ice cream truck.
Five	Five inexplicably found himself waving back even as he demanded to know, "What the hell is he doing here?"
Hazel & Cha Cha	Being hit by an ice cream truck was a pretty humiliating way to die, so Hazel and Cha Cha started shooting. First at the ice cream truck, then at Five and Luther.
Five	Luther immediately stepped in front of Five to absorb that blow when it came, ignoring Five's "you're still a young man" advice. Good thing time slowed to a stop, huh?
The Handler	A perfectly-timed dramatic pause lapsed before a clear, female voice called out, "Neat trick, isn't it?" The Handler took a moment to lift her birdcage veil and slip her sunglasses down so she could get a good look at the only other person able to move in this tableau. "Hello, Five," she said, smiling faintly. "You look good, all things considered."
Five	Five took a moment to take stock of the situation at hand. Bullets flying at Luther--the big idiot. Bullets flying at Klaus and Diego in that ridiculous ice cream truck. And her. Well. He had asked for her to come in person, hadn't he?
The Handler	"Feels like we met just yesterday," the Handler continued fondly. "'Course, you were a little bit older then." Though look how adorable he was now. "Congratulations," she added, gesturing to his knee-socked glory, "on the age regression, by the way. Very clever. Threw us all off the scent."
Five	"I wish I could take credit," Five said, not willing to let her throw him off. "I miscalculated the time dilation projections, and... well, you know. Here I am."
The Handler	"You realize your efforts are futile," she noted, folding her hands -- one of which was clutching a briefcase -- behind her back like an indulgent, vaguely murderous parent. "So why don't you you tell me what you really want?"
Five	"I want you to put a stop to it." The end wasn't going to happen. Not like this. Not with his family at ground zero.
The Handler	"You realize that what you ask is impossible, even for me." The Handler replied so quickly, it was almost like she'd known what he was going to say. She shrugged apologetically. "What's meant to be is meant to be. That's our raison d'être."
Five	Well, that wasn't what he wanted to hear. "How about survival as a raison?" Five asked, pulling a gun that Luther super hadn't known about after his ridiculousness over the rifle.
The Handler	"I'll just be replaced," she said, her voice breathy and just this side of sympathetic. "I'm but a...small cog in a machine." She took a slow step closer, ignoring the gun he was leveling at her. "This fantasy you've been nurturing about summoning up your family to stop the apocalypse...is just that. A fantasy." Again, she was almost sorry. But she was also here for her own reasons. "I must say, though, we're all quite impressed with your initiative, your...stick-to-itiveness, really quite...quite something," the Handler continued, looking impressed as she held eye contact in a faintly unnerving sort of way. "Which is why we want to offer you a new position back at the Commission." She lifted a gloved hand for pure dramatic effect. "In management."
Five	Five didn't lower the gun, but he did squint suspiciously at her and adjust his grip on it. "Sorry, what's that now?"
Handler	"Come back to work for us again. You know it's where you belong," the Handler said, dropping her voice to something a little more intimate as she took a few steps closer.
Five	"Well it didn't work out too well the last time," Five replied, feeling uncomfortably cornered here.
The Handler	"But you wouldn't be in the correction division any longer," she assured him, stepping right onto the end of his sentence as she gestured with the hand that wasn't holding that precious briefcase. "I'm talking about the home office. You'd have the best health and pension, and an end to this ceaseless travel!" She took another slow step closer. "You're a distinguished professional in...." The Handler gave him an appraising, but honest look. "Schoolboy shorts. We have the technology to reverse the process." And she was just going to reach out and gently push his gun down. There, there. She was here to fix things, Five. No need for that. "I mean, you can't be happy like this." She, at least, really wouldn't mind if Number Five wasn't trapped as a prepubescent boy. On a few levels. This was amusing and all, but please.
Five	"I'm not looking for happy," Five informed her, suppressing the urge to jerk the gun back up. Because he, god help him, needed her right now.
The Handler	'We're all looking for happy," the Handler told him, reaching out to brush her hand along his cheek with a certain amount of familiarity. "We can make that happen. We can make you...yourself again." You just had to go with the nice lady and do what she said.
Five	Oh sure, no strings attached, no fine print. "And what about my family?"
The Handler	"What about them?" Boring question. What was with this one-track mind, Five?
Five	"I want them to survive." Look at him caring about his idiot siblings and saying so out loud. While they were all frozen in time.
The Handler	She sighed irritably before taking a look around at Five's brothers, here. The big lug with the briefcase. The two clowns in the ice cream truck. "All of them?" Lot to ask, Five.
Five	"Yes, all of them." But no one could ever know he cared this much. Ever.
The Handler	"Well." The Handler reached into her pocket, taking her time as she unfolded and replaced her sunglasses and squared her shoulders. "I'll see what I can do." She extended her right hand. "Do we have a deal?"
Five	"One thing." Five walked over to take the guns from Hazel and Cha Cha's hands, chucking them into the field next to them, then very carefully changed the trajectory of the bullets headed in Luther's direction. He really did have a whole life ahead of him, after all. Even if he was an idiot about it. Once that was accomplished he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders as well to take the offered hand.
The Handler	With a smile, the Handler shook Five's hand. And in the blink of an eye, they were gone, leaving only a vague electrical zap and a blue blur in their wake as time, abruptly, unfroze.
Luther	Luther, of course, had no idea that time had stopped or that he had narrowly avoided being shot. All he knew was that Five was gone and his other two brothers managed to crash an ice cream truck into a car. "Five? Five!" Luther shouted. He caught the eye of Cha Cha and lifted up the briefcase. "You want it? Go get it." He used his (considerable) strength to launch the briefcase into a nearby field, and once they bolted after it, he ran up to help Klaus with Diego. Who had gotten shot somehow? "What the hell are you guys doing here?" he asked. "Actually car first, then explain." Especially about the ice cream truck, Jesus.