2:6

Five had never felt a more gripping panic when he saw the girl he had been searching desperately for, perhaps a tad more desperately than the others, plastered across the screen of all of the little box televisions in the window to Elliot's store that morning.

He had just been planning to head upstairs after an unsuccessful talk with Vanya when he'd caught sight of the newsreport and it felt as though his heart had stopped - especially when the word emblazoned in large white letters underneath said 'MISSING.'

He read the subtitles as fast as he could as the report played out, his stomach dropping with a horrific fear he hadn't felt in a long time.

...-are urging the public to come forward with any information regarding the sudden disappearance of this seventeen year old girl;Violet was last seen at the end of her shift by her boss and coworkers at Hal's diner at around eleven at night. She was wearing her typical work uniform of a blue dress with a pink collar and sleeves and has long, reddish-brown hair. She's said to be approximately five foot tall with brown eyes and has no known family or friends in the area. Her boss claims to be extremely worried for her safety, stating that 'Violet is a very quiet, sweet, hard working girl - she's not the type who would have just ran away...-'

Five didn't notice he'd put a hand out on the glass as he found himself looking at the half blurry staff photograph plastered on the screen as the reporter spoke. She had a little smile on her face but a familiar uncertainty in her eyes along with rosy tinted cheeks.

...- It seems she left on her bike after her shift to carry out an errand, but further interview with her boss tells us she never made it as the delivery in question was never collected. Her whereabouts between eleven thirty and midnight are unknown...-

He was about to tear away from the screens and blink into the apartment in a hurry when her picture disappeared from screen, but something else caught his eye.

-... Police are beginning to suspect that her disappearance may have some connection to the attack that was carried out by Maxwell Nelson before his death after it was revealed he was a regular at the same diner she worked at. A waitress there who wishes to remain anonymous claims she had had some trouble with Maxwell and a few of his friends previously during the year. Thought it is still being investigated, it cannot be confirmed yet whether there is a link between the two cases despite the coincidental evidence at hand...-

-... there is now increasing worry for the young girl's wellbeing-...

Five had never spacial jumped so fast in his life.

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Violet awoke sharply to the sound of muffled raised voices, her body jolting in the bed that she didn't remember getting herself to. Pain shot up her side and she curled in on herself, grimacing, her heart hammering against her chest.

The room was dark - she didn't know where exactly she was, didn't even want to think about how she got there, all she knew was that her body was exhausted and in pain. The blankets around her were tucked over her body and she faintly wondered if it was Diego who had done that for her.

She could barely prise her eyelids open without them stinging with tears.

"-her face is plastered all over the news-"

She knew the voice, she knew it was Five, she knew it was him and he was there just in the other room and it had been so long since she had seen him; but for the life of her she could not will herself to move a muscle.

There was a muffled response.

"-what do you mean?!- what happened?"

The other voice rose just enough for her to hear. "She won't tell us anything, Five! Its Violet! She won't say a goddamn word!"

The girl nestled her face against whatever pillow she was lying on, weakly tugging the blanket up around her neck and snuggling against it. Her eyes burned with tears that slid down her face and sank into the fabric around her.

Violet was too exhausted to tell whether or not what she was experiencing was a dream or reality as she slipped into a deeper sleep, the pain numbing as she allowed herself to fall into that darkness.

She had no idea how much time had passed since she fell unconcious, or since she experienced that dreamlike state, or what time of day it was.

All she knew when she came to was that someone had their hand resting on her own, and in hindsight it was harmless, but in her fight or flight mindset still scorched into her body - Violet realised someone's hand was on her and jolted upwards in a gripping panic, tearing her hand away and scrambling back in the bed until her back touched the cold wall.

A choked whimper caught in her throat as the blankets tangled around her stiff legs.

"Its me! its me!-"

A dark figure quickly leapt to her right and switched on the lamp, illuminating his face in her bleary eyed state.

"Vi, its okay, its just me." He breathed, extending a cautious hand out towards her.

Violet looked like a frightened, cornered animal and felt even worse when she recognised Five's concerned face.

She took a deep, shaky breath and closed her eyes, pressing the heel of her palms into them and looking down in shame. Her hair hid her distress, but not quick enough for it to go unnoticed.

"I didn't mean to scare you." He continued in a soft tone, troubled and apologetic; she hadn't heard his voice in so long it almost felt foreign falling on her ears.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and brought her injured hand to her chest, bringing the blanket up further for cover.

Her quick breathing evened out but the tension never released from her body.

Its then the shock of the pain kicks in fully, and her head rests back against the wall.

She hears Five swear under his breath and looks at him. His hand shoots up to his face and she spots dark liquid on his fingers, trickling under his nose. He looks down at his hand with furrowed eyebrows.

Guilt kicks her in the gut and she wonders how she manages to not burst into tears then and there.

Her mouth opens to apologise but he blinks away in a split second. When he blinks back to the same spot on the end of the bed, he has tissue pressed under his nose to stop the bleeding.

He looks at her with pinched eyebrows and sees something in the way she's looking at him; he shakes his head.

"It's not you, its fine. I'm fine."

But they both knew the nosebleed was her doing.

He'd known during their time in the apocalypse surviving together all about the extent of her powers. She had told him about it, how she could heal but also cause harm if she willed it.

He was the only one who knew other than herself.

Up until now they had just agreed to avoid mentioning it because it made Violet feel kind of ashamed, despite how many times she'd been told it wasn't something she should feel bad about especially if she couldn't control it.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, turning her gaze to her lap.

"No, it's my fault." He responds quickly.

The room is shrouded in thick silence and Violet struggles to sit still, but any movement would provoke deep aches and sharp stabbing pain.

After a while, the nosebleed stopped, much to her relief. Still, despite everything, she was drowning in guilt.

He could see it but he knew he'd never get through to her. Especially in the state she was in now.

Violet sat back, her eyes noticing the ajar door and faint light streaming in from another room.

In the background they both heard the news station play out and immediately, she drew her legs in closer as a certain case was mentioned.

It was only faint and they couldn't pick up on the words, but they both knew what it was about.

They listened to the droning voice for all but ten seconds before Five disappeared in a little flash, and on his return, the noise from the television became silent.

He tried to catch her eyes but she was avoiding it.

Finally, after a long time of wondering what to say, he broke the silence with a little sigh.

"You killed him, didnt you?" He asked knowingly but lightly.

It was all over the news, but police couldn't figure out how his neck had been broken in such a way they'd never seen before. It didnt seem 'humanly possible.' A shattered vertebrae that tore through muscle and tendons and skin, rupturing inside his throat. Five knew the signs.

She didn't look up from her lap and nodded once, her hand throbbing.

A flash of quick-to-anger dark brown eyes ran through her mind, along with icy blue ones that sent chills running down her spine.

She recalled how quick their wickedness had turned to horror.

Her thoughts were slow yet all over the place. She could only assume Diego and him had spoken and worked things out from all the things she didn't say.

"What did he do to you?" He asked so gently she barely heard him, and although the light softened his harsh edges, his fists were clenched against the fabric of the blanket and his jaw was sharp, dark shadows crossing his eyes as he looked at her.

There was the question she had been hoping to avoid.

She corrected in a whisper, looking down. "They."

His frown deepened, if that was possible.

She didn't know what power on earth was giving her the ability to speak, but she elaborates, even if it's short and wavering and barely audible. "Two of them."

He says nothing but his grip on the fabric tightens.

"Did they..." He didn't want to say it.

She tucked her head down against her arms and didnt speak for a very long time. When he thought he was going to get no response, she forced out the single word, "Tried," her voice cracking.

Five was having a hard time keeping his composure, a deep and scalding rage burning inside of him as he had to imagine what she had gone through- his Violet, who deserved not a single morsel of anything bad in the world, who had already been through so much- it didn't seem fair.

And yet it was his time travel that had fucked up and brought her here in the first place.

He couldn't see her as clear as he'd have liked in the dim lamps light, especially with how she kept her head down. But he could see a darker patch across the side of her mouth and a split that went from the right side of her bottom lip all the way across her top lip, and that alone caused him difficulty looking at her.

"In the news they speculated that you knew them. Is that true?"

He figured he'd get all of the questions out of the way while she could talk; they had to know what happened and keeping it all bottled up would surely kill her.

She shrugged a shoulder, grimacing, thinking about it.

"One of your colleagues said they continuously targeted you everytime they showed up at the diner-"

"-Caroline." She whispered, heart warming.  Caroline was so lovely. She'd just confirmed what he was about to ask, as what the news was saying was true, despite them seeing it as speculation. "I... got their attention because..."

She paused, eyes glazing over. "...I can't talk like- like everyone else does."

His look turned stern on her.

"Hey," this made her look up at him. "You didn't do anything to 'catch their attention.' None of this is to do with you, it's to do with those pieces of shits'.  Okay?"

She regarded him softly before nodding, and he had a feeling she had only half heeded his words. Everything was too fresh for her to even attempt to think differently.

He desperately wanted to reach out a hand for her to hold in the hopes she would accept an embrace, because deep down they both needed it (for varying reasons,) but with how she'd been scared of him simply by resting a hand on her arm, he chose not to.

"How are you healing?" He asked knowingly.

She looked down at her hand, still broken and swollen and bruised. The skin lesions had healed but not much else.

"Slow."

He nodded, looking away for a moment. "You need rest. I'll talk to you in a few hours."

She wanted to call out to stop him as he got up to leave with his head hanging low, but she couldn't.

She was simply too tired.

She went to lie back down stiffly when his presence still in the room shocked her. He had paused by the doorway with one last burning question at the forefront of his mind, one that he had to ask for his own sanity.

"You said there were two, but only one body was found," he turned to look at her over his shoulder and noticed her still. "What happened to the other one?"

Violet didn't talk.

The thought alone that he would come looking for her to finish the job had already tormented her, and she curled in on herself tighter on her side, despairingly.

"Is he alive?" He asked finally.

She didn't meet his eyes but forced herself to nod once.

She knew he could see the slight moment.

His jaw tightened. He said nothing before leaving her, gently closing the door behind him, his actions in no way mirroring the blinding rage he felt toiling inside his head and his heart.