∽☂ ∽

"𝐄𝐇, 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝐀 𝐁𝐈𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄."

∽☂ ∽

"𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐔𝐒 𝐒𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐑?" Allison reassuringly put her hand on Viktor's.

"I didn't - Well, I-"

"Uh, I just...I can't believe I never realized..."

The city was a bit crowded, but the sidewalks were free just for the three of them. Allison and Viktor continued to talk with each other, with Allison blaming herself that she was clueless, but Y/n kept quiet and stayed out of the conversation.

Looking down at the ground or to the side, she let herself be one with her messy thoughts that seemed to never stop running in her head. But getting a moment like this was more than enough.

Their voices drowned on their way to her ears and not a single word reached Y/n. Despite the two talking intensively throughout the walk, it was still nice to go outside and get some fresh air while trying to collect her reflections.

"Y/n? Hey, Y/n?" Allison and Viktor both shook Y/n out of her gaze, making her act as if she just woke up.

"Huh? Yeah, you were saying?" The girl turned to look at them and smiled, hoping that would make them brush this away.

The two looked at each other, knowing they were thinking the same thing and stopped walking. "Okay, what has been going on with you lately?" Allison asked her.

"I just..." Y/n struggled to speak. "...I'm just sleep-deprived. And, uh, nervous about Lila. That's all, you know?"

Viktor may have let her slide, but Allison wasn't about to. "Okay, then you head back to the hotel. You're clearly not in the right state of mind to be doing this."

Y/n scoffed at that order, looking over at Viktor for some help and getting none. "Are you serious? Allison, come on, I'm the only one who knows how to use that briefcase here, you need me."

"We'll be bringing the briefcase back to the hotel anyways." Allison crossed her arms on her chest as a sign of solemnity. "I'm serious, Y/n. You don't look good and we'll take care of it. It's what's best for you."

The girl looked at Viktor once again, wanting to get some support from him. "She's right, Y/n. You should go. We only want what's best for you."

This felt like a slap in the face. Y/n wanted to go with them to get her mind off things and that wasn't happening. Now, even that was ruined. Reluctantly, she went her own way, abiding by their orders and taking their advice.

∽☂ ∽

"𝐒𝐎, 𝐔𝐇, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐘/𝐍?" Klaus looked over at Five, sitting in the passenger seat, and smirked. "You two doing something together?"

Five's smile vanished a bit as the image of their last conversation showed up in his mind. "I don't know yet. I know what she might want and, surprisingly, I might want it too, but it seems like..."

"Like you can't really trust the world?" Klaus finished his sentence with a sigh. "Yeah, I know that feeling, buddy. It's hard to fully let it go. But, hey, at least you have each other, you seem to always be together like young lovers."

"Yeah," Five softly chuckled at that. "All our lives we feared for the worst, acting cautious and careful, but now, we can forget about it, start something new for us."

"Hm-mmm, yes, but can you actually forget about it?" Klaus made Five think about it for a moment there. "I mean, if I were in your place, I wouldn't be able to completely ditch it, it's a lot to take in there." But he just had to ask the question he really wanted to know the answer to. "What does Y/n want?"

But Five, being the kind and respectful person, couldn't do that. "She asked me for this to stay between us." He said giving a disappointed look. "But it is something that we both wanted but couldn't have before."

"Oh!" Klaus's eyes went wide as he smiled. "Well, then it must be a very big thing that you waited so long for."

"Yeah," Five smiled and looked through the window. "It really is."

∽☂ ∽

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 to start to set behind buildings as Y/n was still walking to the hotel. Wanting to stay out here as much as possible, she refused to get back to the hotel, for her, this was a much better place to be.

Sure, it was in the middle of the city, and yes, staying in bed was a way better option, but not being reminded of the past and, possibly, the confusing future, seemed more appealing. Besides, everything out here seemed so calm.

Even though the world was safe and The Handler along with the commission was out of the way, Y/n couldn't accept the fact that everything was going to be okay from now on. That's why she chose to make sure that the thing that was making her stay awake had to leave. If she gets the answer to her question, all of these worries will fade away.

Being a smooth thief, the girl walked inside a local pharmacy and took a box containing a pregnancy test inside. She put it under her clothes and managed to swiftly make her way outside, thanks to her physical features that made her so short and almost invisible to the cashier.

Doing the quite opposite to before, she dashed back to the hotel, running past the front desk and up the stairs to the hallway of her room, getting weird looks from people everywhere she went. As if someone was chasing her down the hallway, she ran as fast as she could until Diego and Stanley came out of nowhere around the corner.

Pulling the brakes as fast as she could, Y/n stopped at her pace and caught her breath. "Oh! Diego...what are...what are you...doing here?" She nervously chuckled.

Diego looked at her from up to down. "You okay? Why were you running so fast?" He asked, looking behind her to see if anyone was there and was chasing her.

Y/n quickly thought of something. "Um, I was just running fast because...because I needed to...talk to you actually!"

"Why did you want to talk to me?"

"Because we...we're having an emergency family meeting downstairs now." Y/n was finally able to breathe normally after such a run. "If you see someone, call them, okay? It's important."

"Uh..."

But before Diego could say anything, Y/n already ran past him. "Okay, thank you so much, bye!"

Not caring about Diego anymore, the girl finally made it to her room. After closing the door behind her, she leaned against it, holding the boxes tightly in her hands. Giving herself a second to breathe, she instantly snapped back into reality and dashed to the bathroom.

Locking it on her way in for various different purposes, she placed the box on the sink and allowed herself to take deep breaths, looking at herself in the mirror. Yikes. After running across the city, she wasn't looking the best, but that didn't matter. What really mattered was finding out the answer to the question that has been stuck in her mind.

As she began opening the box, she could hear the door to the hotel room opening. That was enough for her to stop her movements and listen in.

"I told you he was going to blow you off." Allison said to Viktor, throwing her coat onto her bed. "Trusting a Sparrow - that's a waste of time."

"No, Marcus is better." Viktor refused to believe. "Maybe something came up and he couldn't come, there had to be-"

"We waited for him for 3 hours." Allison turned around and looked at him. "I think the answer is clear here."

Y/n knew she had to come out, so she stuffed everything back into the box and hid the two behind the trashcan in the bathroom, hoping no one would see it.

"Hey, you're back." The girl opened the door and saw the two. "I'll take it you didn't get the briefcase back, right?"

Allison not wanting to hear this, scoffed and walked out of the room once again. "I need a drink."

"Allison, wait!" Viktor called out for her.

"I think she could use some time alone." Y/n sighed and walked over to him.

"I could use a drink too." He walked away from her and to the table, taking the room key. "You coming?"

Y/n wanted to come along but decided to stay back. "No, I'll stay."

So Viktor nodded in response and walked out of the room just like Allison. As soon as the sound of the door closing reached the girl's ears, she bolted back to the bathroom.

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𝐍𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄. After waiting for almost an hour, a minus sign showed up on the pregnancy test as a result.

After all of those thoughts and worries, after all of those signs, after all of those hopes...it's negative?

She stared at the pregnancy test in her hands in disbelief with shuttering breaths softly escaping her lips. All of this time, she was afraid she might be pregnant, but the second she found out she wasn't, she was upset?

Leaning against the bathroom wall, she slid down to the ground as tears began forming in her eyes to her surprise. She was in disbelief. Sadness.

The first time she had hope for creating a family of her own was gone like the wind. So many nights of dreaming of a moment like this only with a different ending and for what?

She didn't know how long she sat on that floor, silently crying to herself. Time wasn't a problem to her until a knock on her bathroom door broke her crying.

"Y/n? You're here?" Five's voice was heard.

Immediately wiping the tears off her wet cheeks, she began hiding the pregnancy test along with its box in the trashcan. "Uh, yeah! What is it?"

Five could hear the toilet paper holder and soap being thrown to the ground. "Um, I need to talk to you now."

She quickly washed off her face with the water and opened the door, making Five back off from it. "Yeah, yeah, sure..." She tried acting naturally. "...what's up?"

She put her hand on the threshold while keeping the other one on the doorknob, in case he tried to go inside the bathroom. But there must have been something very important because Five brushed her unusual behavior off.

"Listen, this is important. Meet me in the pool table room upstairs, okay?"

"Oh." This sounded much more serious. "Yeah, of course. What's wrong?"

"We fucked up. Like, bad."

"Again?"

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"𝐒𝐎, 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘, the entire universe is collapsing in on itself and little by little, everything will be gone?" Y/n slowly looked at Five, away from the pool table which was covered in papers.

Five looked at the cup in his hands and sighed. "Pretty much, yeah."

Somehow managing to re-program her mind from one chaos to another, Y/n buried her face in her hands and looked down at the ground. "But The Grandfather Paradox hasn't been ever-"

"Hasn't been ever recorded in history? Yeah." The boy finished for her, taking a sip of his coffee.

"I am so confused." Diego shook his head.

"Shocking." Allison leaned against a wall and played with her necklace.

"Well, someone killed our mothers, so we shouldn't exist." Viktor tried to converse everything. "But clearly, we do exist, and the universe can't handle it, which is a problem."

"Big problem." Five sighed.

"A problem, we don't know the solution to." Y/n agreed, sitting on the pool table in exhaustion.

"Okay, hold on." Allison raised her voice. "Five, so we caused a paradox. What does that mean?"

"It's hard to say. It's all been theoretical until now, but things have started to disappear." He tried to give an answer.

"What things?"

"Right now? Uh, lobsters."

"And a shit ton of cows!" Klaus sat up from laying on the ground with the journal in his hands.

"But I have a feeling this is just the beginning." Five put his hands on the table and leaned against it.

"A feeling?" Allison scoffed at that. "Aren't you retired?"

"I want nothing more."

"You know, you can't keep dragging us through hell because you have an itch only an apocalypse can scratch and then expect us to deal with the fallout." Allison marched right over to him with a furious rage. "You're not the boss."

Y/n sat on Five's right and carefully watched their conversation. It was visible that Allison wasn't okay. It seemed as if Five was about to lose it, but instead, he stayed calm even if Allison was yelling straight into his face. He must have been really tired.

"Fine, I'm the messenger, and I'm telling you something terrible is coming." The boy told her in a low voice, making Allison lower her's.

"Then let's go attack the Sparrows, get the briefcase, and go home."

"This is our home, Allison." Finally, someone said the truth to her. "Accept it."

The tension between the two was very high, luckily, Stanley knocked out some furniture by swinging his pool table stick and broke it. Everyone turned their heads to look at him as the wooden pieces clattered to the ground.

"That's it!" Diego stood up and began walking over to him. "I'm telling your mom!"

"Ooh!" Stanley made fun of him.

"Wait, where's Lila?" Five asked the two.

"Shower. I told her she could stay with us." Stanley explained to him.

She's here? That thought struck Y/n like a train. Lila was here, yet she didn't even come close to her. Was she avoiding Y/n? Probably, seems like Lila.

"Wait, when did Lila get back?" Viktor pinched in as well.

Five took a second to think before walking over to Y/n. "You coming with me?"

She needed no introduction to where he was headed, but after giving herself a moment to think, she shook her head. "No, I'll stay here." The boy understood and respected her decision, so he didn't get into any discussions with her.

"Five, where you going?" Diego asked just as Five was heading out.

"Go talk to somebody who only has half her head up her ass."

"Don't leave, Five." Klaus whined like a baby. "Don't leave."

"No, Klaus. I'm leaving."

Klaus turned to look at the others as if the last hope of his walked out on him. But Viktor only smiled at him. "I mean, he has a good track record with his stuff. I feel like we should listen to him, right, Y/n?"

He turned to her just as Y/n ended her daydreaming session. "I've been trusting him for all of my life. I would say if there was something wrong."

"Sure. Hey, quick question." Klaus stood up from the ground with the journal and walked to the table. "Do none of you heartless bastards care about our murdered moms?" He flopped the book on it.

"Klaus, the only one that we knew was plugged into a wall." Diego said in a monotone voice.

"Oh yeah? Well, this is my real mother." He picked up the book and scattered through the pages until he found her picture. "And she's called Rachel. And I have her eyes." He showed it to everyone. "See?" But no one said a thing. "Come on! We need to find out who did this! This is the thing! This is the main thing!"

As Klaus proceeded to assault the book by hitting it with his finger, Diego lashed out. "Is that all you want?"

"Yeah!"

"'Cause it's obviously Dad, all right? He knew where we were born. He hated us in '63. Boom. Murders." Diego blurted it out to him.

"You think Dad is capable of killing innocent people?" Klaus put the journal on his chest.

Allison guffawed at that, while drinking her beer, as Viktor nodded. "Absolutely."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he did it." Y/n agreed.

"Oh, it's Murder City, buddy." Diego told him.

Klaus put his head down and sighed after hearing such responses. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Little late for a meeting, pal." Diego told Luther who came out of nowhere.

Literally, he walked up the stairs after going missing in broad daylight like it was nothing. And it seemed as if he had a good time.

The other four turned around to look at him. "I was being held captive. By the Sparrows."

"What?"

"Why on earth would they take you?" Y/n furrowed her eyebrows.

"Wait. Did none of you notice?" Luther looked over at everyone in disbelief.

The siblings tried thinking of what to say before their answers overlapped each other.

"We're happy you're home safe and sound."

"Yeah. Oh my god."

"We were so worried about you!"

Luther rolled his eyes at that and walked over. "Oh yeah. Okay. Nice."

"Did they hurt you?" Allison questioned.

"Who? The Sparrows? God, no." Luther shook his head as he put his bag on the table. "Not at all. Excellent hosts. Really quite charming, actually."

"Eh, that's a bit hard to believe." Y/n told him as Allison began rummaging through his bag like a noisy brat.

"Oh, and you should see their gym. Oustanding!" Luther continued to praise them. "I really think we got these guys all wrong."

Allison pulled out the soundtrack of Sparrows from his bag and showed it to the others. "Says the guy they kidnapped."

Luther's smile vanished as he loudly slurped his drink until Diego whistled to get his attention. "What did they want?"

"Oh. Marcus. He's missing. They want him back. Unharmed." Luther turned to look at Viktor who the Sparrows told was last seen with Marcus.

"We don't have him."

"Well, damn. I was hoping we'd solve that one quickly and then move on to problem number two." Luther just kept on going with the news. "Disappearing people."

Remember how the siblings didn't want to believe Five just minutes ago? Well, that's changed. Luther's news made them finally realize that this was real and that Five was, once again, correct. Three times in a row.

But just as Y/n was about to speak up, Stanley swung his stick and broke a couple of glass vases. Everyone went silent and looked at him. "Uh, it was...it was the wind."

"Who's the kid?"

∽☂ ∽