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Jul 8

Commission era. The Albatross

Chapter 3: Stray Cat.

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy

Pairing: Number Five x Female OC

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

This chapter is crucial for Five's psychological and physical recovery, so it contains some emotionally heavy moments. Please mind the warnings: detailed dental procedures, severe panic attack, sensory overload, and mentions of starvation/malnutrition and apocalyptic trauma. Please read with care if these are triggering for you.

The second half of the chapter does deliver hurt/comfort <3

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

It was the beginning of his fourth full day in the Temps Commission. The first three days back in civilization were… okay. As much as they could be okay after a lifelong survival mission, pain still hummed in every little corner of his malnourished body. But he had time now to assess it and ask for help even though it felt unnatural.

Today he’d got solid food for the first time. Well, sort of. He ate a few spoonfuls of watery oatmeal. It still tasted like boring astronaut food, except it was on a plate this time. A decaf tea barely brewed in a cup of water, still being very transparent. But it was so appetizing compared to what he had, his mouth watered. Five remembered the oatmeal in the Academy - it was rich. Milk, sugar, berries, and some nuts. His stomach growled, accepting the simple breakfast and was already excited for a cup of tea and the next meal during lunch time.

Five looked at his reflection in the cup. It was almost like it nodded back at him in a small supporting gesture. It dawned on him. How this simple thought about lunch felt good. Back in the apocalypse it was harder and harder to find something to eat even once, that looked close enough to a meal. And if he looked into the reflection of the muddy water he didn’t even see the bottom of the cup. God that was… he shivered from the thought only. He almost couldn't believe how normal it felt to him for his whole life now. No version of normal was accessible to Five.

He checked his individual memo he tucked in between the Commission Handbook as a bookmark for now.

08:00 Therapeutic check with Dr. Smith.

10:00 Dentist.

On the page next to it, among the instructions he noticed faded pencil marks. It’s like some trainee used the Handbook as a personal diary, and the librarian tried their best to erase it from long-used paper of the book.

There was Moons’ signature, approving the daily check-ins with the briefcases to make sure they weren’t malfunctioning. Right below Five could read a very faint line.

!!! CAREFUL. The old bitch sees everything. If you mess … coordinates once … she won’t bat an eye sending you to the Council. She … no heart, … commission ink running … her …

Under this, a more recent one.

At least the Handler gives bonuses, this one makes you do constellation math???? WHY

Five scoffed aloud. Math? He wasn’t afraid of math.

He was entirely used to people lying, and this wasn’t the first time he had heard rumors along these lines about Moons. Five wasn't one to pass judgment, but at the end of the day, it was Moons who had given him the warm woolen socks, not the Handler.

Still, he firmly decided to keep his distance from both of them anyway.

His hand scratched on his growing stubble, as his eyes traveled to the bathroom door. He didn’t think of shower for three days. He just jumped in once, not even adjusting to warm water on the first day, spent exactly two minutes there and jumped out. Now, Five thought… he didn’t have to collect water for days for something like this. But he wanted to look presentable in the Doctor’s chair in the office after. He thought everyone found him gross. He didn’t care. He was gross in fact. To wash yourself in the apocalypse was a deadly mission. More often Five would use a washcloth soaked in rain water (plus the ash), or used a moist handful of sand, a broken mirror piece, or ripped off fabric to just rub off dirt and blood. He had no bath for 40 years, but Five got used to it. A part of his brain that wanted to care for it almost… blocked out these thoughts completely.

He went to the bathroom. Assessed the surroundings questioning if every little detail was normal and safe. Then he caught himself in the mirror and if he could, he’d laugh at his own face at that moment. Five shook his head. This was ridiculous, why did he feel like an exotic alien?

He opened the glass door of the bathtub with a shower. “Mhm” Five summed up.

He had no moral right to take a full bath - that felt like such a waste of water at once, so he just turned the warm water on through the showerhead. He reached out his hand to feel the temperature and now THAT felt alien.

He took his clothes off and stepped carefully into the bathtub. Hot water felt like the weirdest but most comforting thing. He shuddered and turned it hotter. And a little more.

on the small shelf he could see a few bottles for hygiene. He took each one in his hands, looking at the letters through the water drips from the shower. He had a shampoo, a shower gel and a sponge. Everything was hypoallergenic, Five double checked the chemical composition before actually using it. It didn’t smell like anything specific to a normal person, but Five could catch the scent of… something like home. Something like “he just got back from the intense training with his siblings and Grace left fresh warm towels and he’s gonna take a shower, put on a fresh ironed uniform and go get some lunch”

He shampooed his hair. It was obviously sparse and mostly colorless. And still falling out, he could feel a naked patch on the top of his head he usually didn’t think about. He hid it under the longer hair in the apocalypse and a warm beanie he found. Now… he definitely needed a hat to go with his suit.

Shower gel felt very soft. He went over his whole body twice. Stood with his back to the water, rinsing everything out with closed eyes. Then he washed himself again with a sponge. Just in case he missed the spot, and in case the next shower wouldn't happen soon enough, so he could stay clean longer.

He turned the hot water a little more and cleaned himself again.

By the time he was out of the shower, his skin was flushed pink. He put the warm socks on right away so as not to step barefoot on the cold floor, and wrapped himself in two towels at the same time - one around his hips and the other around his shoulders like a cape.

Five sat down on the edge of his bed and closed his eyes. Steam was following him to the room, and Five felt like he could breathe better. He inhaled deeply -

“Mr. Five?” an anxious voice called out from the other side of the door with the following knock. ‘Mr. Five!”

Five coughed.

‘Yes?’

“Oh thank god!” there was a great relief in their voice.

Five raised an eyebrow and then looked at the clock on his wall. 8:32. He was more than thirty minutes late to the Doctor’s office. He stood up abruptly. He got so lost under the warm water, time absolutely leaked through his fingers.

“Sorry!” he already was reaching for his underwear and pants. “I–”

“Is everything okay? We got worried, and the Director sent me to check on you. Dr.Smith is waiting for you, Mr. Five, but if you're not feeling well we can reschedule…”

“Didn’t hear you knock,” Five said calmly but loud enough to be heard through the locked door. He’d really appreciate them not mentioning Moons when he still stood without his pants on, but it was too late already, “5 minutes. I’ll be there”

It took exactly 4 minutes and 30 seconds for the nervous clerk to lead Five to Dr. Smith's office. Five never went to a psychiatrist, but he knew how to vent and be told off even by someone who he trusts more than anyone. Delores, obviously.Meaning his own mind

“Number Five” Dr. Smith greeted him with a respectful nod, holding a tablet in his hands.

“Hello” Five nodded back. His throat sounded less like dry twigs now.

He walked in and watched the doctor sit in a big comfy leather chair and gestured to a similar chair across him. Five thought it was weird - the fact that they won’t have a desk between each other? Is that how it happens? Even Reginald was always behind his own desk, no parental warmth whatsoever. Five sat down.

“I’m glad you’re here” Dr. Smith smiled, crossing his legs and looking through his notes on the tablet, then turning to a blank page.

“Me too. In a full sense of here.”

“Did you get a chance to talk about your experience to anyone here since you arrived?”

Five hesitated, “No,” he cleared his throat, “I don’t think anyone would want that.”

“Mhm” Smith wrote something down and pointed to a small coffee table with a carafe full of water, “you can have water, Five, if you need it. Because I want to hear all about your experience’

“You do?” Five almost scoffed. Yeah, right. Because his experience of loneliness was so exciting.

“Yes, Five, I do. Your journey is so unique. It’s interesting for me to hear all about it, not only as your therapist, but as a human.”

“What is therapy anyway? I don’t think I have an idea.”

“Well. It’s like reading a book and looking through the pages you hid from yourself, on purpose or not. I can help you to look back on them. We can’t erase what's written, but we can put a different perspective to your new pages. Add more context to the previous ones. How does that sound?”

Five lowered his gaze. Who was he now aside from a survivor? Talking to people still felt like the weirdest dream. The context was simple - he did a stupid thing at thirteen and was paying for it for 40 years straight. Searched for the right equation to return and couldn’t. What kind of details could he add? Five just wanted to forget it. This was embarrassing.

"I want to forget everything about it,” he said aloud.

“Everything?”

But as Five heard this word back, his mind betrayed him. He remembered Delores... Her eyes the first time he saw her. The way some early days in the apocalypse felt like a blast, when he loved being left alone. No missions, no learning Homer in full Greek, no less. Running and blinking around, saving Delores from an imaginative monster. Knowing that yes, he in fact time traveled. Fuck everybody! Let them stay in the academy, limiting their powers, when he - the best one, obviously, actually time travelled!

Dr. Smith didn't use standard questionnaires like the Beck scale. For a man who had spent half a century walking over the bones of civilization, questions like “Do you feel sad?” or “Have you lost interest in your hobbies?” were simply laughable. First, there were the inkblots.

Dr. Smith held up the first Rorschach card, a symmetrical splash of black ink. Five didn't even blink.

“A collapsed concrete wall,” Five said dryly, his voice flat. “Bodies underneath. Crushed bones.”

Smith didn't correct him. He smoothly transitioned to the next card, a chaotic blend of red and black.

“An atmospheric blast,” Five replied instantly, his fingers starting to tap a rapid, complex mathematical pattern against the leather armrest. “Ash and fire. Thermal burns.”

The psychiatrist carefully laid the cards down. He tried to feel out the weaknesses, shifting the focus to the impossible: forty years of absolute isolation. How did a thirteen-year-old boy not lose his mind? How did he survive?

Five tilted his chin up, his jaw set in that quiet, stubborn pride that had defined every single year of his solitary exile.

“The records mention a mannequin, Five,” Dr. Smith noted softly, flipping a page in his file. “You spent over four decades talking to plastic.”

Five’s eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't know the word psychosis, and frankly, he didn't care about medical definitions. He just knew what it took to stay alive.

“It wasn't a disease, Doctor,” Five rasped, the apocalyptic edge cutting through his words. “It was a choice. If you stay completely silent for that long, you forget how to speak. Your brain rots. You become an animal that only knows how to hunt. I needed to keep my mind sharp. I needed to calculate the equations to get back to my family. Dolores was just… there. She was a secondary logic. I knew she was plastic, I’m not stupid. But she was the only reason I didn't forget how to be human. It was my strategy. And it worked. I am here.”

He didn't survive because he was a machine. He survived because his anger and his fierce, desperate need to save his siblings were stronger than time itself.

Dr. Smith took off his glasses, looking straight into Five’s cold, piercing eyes. “You are not a psychopath, Five. And you do not suffer from personality disintegration.”

For a second, Five’s fingers froze against the leather.

“I know I’m not,” Five muttered, a hint of his usual arrogant smirk playing on his lips, though it looked strained. “Psychopaths don’t spend forty-five years trying to find a way back just to save the people they love.”

“Yes, they don't,” Smith agreed gently. “But knowing it yourself and receiving validation from the outside are two different things. Your psyche has pulled off a miracle. You didn't break because your devotion to your family became your exoskeleton. But now that you are safe, Five... this exoskeleton is beginning to crush your own ribs. Your internal storm is not madness. It is just decades of survival instinct that you no longer need to protect yourself from death, and yet it is burning you from within. You cannot sleep because your brain currently views peace as danger.”

Five remained silent, but his breathing grew noticeably heavier. He didn't quite understand the doctor's metaphors, but Smith’s words hit the bullseye with sniper-like precision. Therapy was giving him exactly what he couldn't do for himself—it was organizing his chaos, turning his invisible pain into a tangible, logical structure. It was the validation he never knew he needed: You survived an abnormal world, and your reaction to a normal one is completely valid.

“Our time is up for today,” Dr. Smith said, offering a warm, respectful smile. “I’ll see you next week, Five. Have a good day.”

Five gave a stiff nod, stood up, and adjusted the top button of his new navy blue blazer. He walked out of the office, his posture rigidly straight.

The moment the heavy door clicked shut, Dr. Smith let out a long, heavy breath he felt he’d been holding the entire hour. His hands were shaking—just a slight, involuntary tremor. Dealing with Number Five was like sitting across from a live nuclear warhead that was desperately trying to disguise itself as a schoolboy.

The psychiatrist picked up his tablet, looking over his session notes. The boy hadn't said much, but his silence and those few, sharp sentences spoke volumes. The patient exhibits surprisingly high, intuitive insight into his own coping mechanisms. He does not suffer from a delusion; he intentionally utilized a sensory substitute to preserve linguistic and logical faculties. Insane cognitive endurance. Monumental mental strength.

Smith turned to a fresh A4 sheet to prepare his formal report for the Director. Moons had already made it clear in her strict directive: weekly therapy sessions were a mandatory, non-negotiable procedure for Number Five, with a clause allowing for more frequent visits immediately upon the psychiatrist's request.

Adjusting his glasses, Smith began typing the final evaluation, knowing Moons would be waiting for it:

“He is absolutely, monumentally stable, Director. His willpower is an anomaly. Anyone else in his shoes would have put a bullet through their brain by the tenth year of isolation. But Number Five possesses a maniacal level of autonomy. His devotion to his family holds his mind together more rigidly than any mental blocks could. He is ready for tactical analytics.”

Beneath the assessment, he quickly added the new medical directive for the evening shift:

Pharmacological Support (Quarantine Period)

Prescription: Mild, long-acting sedatives that do not suppress cognitive functions or mathematical synthesis.

Objective: Reduce permanent tachycardia, eliminate limb tremors, and blunt hypervigilance reactions to the domestic noises of the Commission.

Night Protocol: Administration of sedatives into the evening nutrient mix 30 minutes before bed.

The first ever therapy session was a walk in the park in contrast to Five’s next appointment.

The white coat of the jaw surgeon felt like a target in Five's peripheral vision. This by far was the most humbling and humiliating experience in his life, ever. Five’s teeth were in bad shape from eating outdated canned food, bad water, poor hygiene, lack of any mandatory vitamins and god knows what else. He didn’t bother to assess it, he knew it was bad. So when he had a long grey beard and a mustache, which made it possible for him to just ignore it at the time. But he couldn't anymore.

Talking to real people now meant opening his mouth, preferably. And breathing too, oh my god… he remembered the brilliantly white smile of the Handler and he felt so much shame he wanted to use that prohibited blink into a wall and have this heart attack Moons warned him about.

Half an hour after a very detailed examination, Five’s jaw was very sore and his pride was damaged beyond repair. He peeked at the dentists, waiting for them to hold their breaths or tear up from holding back a gag reflex. They didn’t, they were professionals… But in this exact moment with his mouth wide open Five felt like such an inconvenience.

"We need to start the intravenous sedation, Operative," the surgeon said after a long moment, his voice flat, professional, and entirely unbothered. "The bone reconstruction requires deep anesthesia. Look at this 3D full scan” the surgeon gestured with the tiny mirror in his hand.

Five squinted, looking over the spots the surgeon pointed to, thinking ‘no way this is my mouth’, when the medical assistant said “Your heart rate is within the lower margin of safety now. We need to move."

What?

"No." Five snapped, shaking his head.

“No?”

A tight, frantic jerk of his chin. "No.” Five stated again. Local numbing. Only. I’ll hold still."

Dentists exchanged glances.

"Mr. Five,” they started carefully, “It’s impossible. You will go into shock from the pain. It’s not just the general treatment, we are resetting bone fragments."

"I said no," Five's voice rose, a dangerous, feral edge scraping through the rasp. He went completely rigid, his breathing turning into shallow, ragged hitches.

He was trapped. His grown adult brain knew the math. Bad teeth meant no solid food, no weight gain, no field clearance, no saving his family. But the feral animal inside him was screaming that to close his eyes here and sleep in the room full of people he only met an hour ago was to die.

And deeper, beneath the survival instincts of the dead world, an older, colder phantom was waking up.

The umbrella tattoo on his wrist at ten years old. The smell of burning ink and flesh. The cold, mechanical grip of Reginald’s assistants holding his small arm down while his father watched with a stopwatch. In the Umbrella Academy, saying 'no' didn't change the outcome. Saying 'no' only meant the punishment would be heavier. The more his body wanted to fight the needle, the more his mind panicked because he was breaking the rule of submission. He was a bad asset. He was going to be locked away. A cold, suffocating sweat broke out across his forehead, his chest heaving as the hyperventilation began to set in.

The door slid open with a soft click. Moons stepped into the room.

She looked at the surgeon. Then, her eyes went straight to Five, to the desperate, frantic terror in his dilated pupils, to the way his jaw was locked in a silent, child-like sob of pure panic. For the first time behind the armor of the cynical fifty-year-old tactical genius, Moons saw the ghost of the boy who had never been allowed to be afraid. The boy who had been socialized only into obedience and then left to rot alone for forty years.

"Step out," Moons told the medical staff. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cleared the room in three seconds.

Once the door closed, Moons approached him, standing near the tray, keeping her hands visible, her posture relaxed. At the moment she didn't treat Five like a malfunctioning asset. She treated him like a person who had a right to say no.

"Five?" she said softly, using that calm, steady cadence that always acted as a grounding wire for his fried nerves.

He forced his eyes to hers, his breath rattling in his chest. His chest was tight, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"You're allowed to say no," Moons said, her voice dropping an octave, solid and unyielding. "Reginald Hargreeves isn't in this room. The Handler isn't in this room. If you tell me to cancel the procedure, I will sign the cancellation order right now. No one is going to punish you. No one is going to lock you away."

Five's throat clicked as he swallowed hard. The mention of his father made his chest ache, but the reassurance that he had a choice, that his 'no' had legal weight, started to slow the frantic spinning in his head. It took him a long, agonizing ten seconds to find his syntax, but when he spoke, the sentences were more connected than they had been since he first arrived.

"If I don't... if I don't do it," he whispered, his eyes darting to the IV pole, "I can't eat anything solid. And I'll stay as a weak parody of a human. I know I'm gross. And I know timelines won't wait for me to get comfortable with a needle."

"Timeline can wait for three months, Five. I already told you that," Moons countered gently, taking one small step closer, her eyes melting with a quiet, profound empathy. "But you're right. The reconstruction needs to happen. So, tell me. What do you need to make the perimeter safe? What will help you let go of the control for two hours?"

Five looked down at his own trembling hands. He hated his weakness. He hated that he was a fifty-year-old man sitting in a chair, terrified of a chemical sleep.

"I don't know," he muttered, his chin dropping toward his chest. "In the ruins... I had layers. I had weight on me. The wind was loud... It's too quiet here."

Moons nodded slowly, her mind working with that brilliant, adaptive competence.

"A blanket?" she offered. "We have weighted thermal drapes in the supply closet. It will feel like the weight of your layers."

Five gave a small, hesitant nod.

"And what about the silence?" she asked. "White noise? The sound of rain? Wind?"

"Wind," he breathed, his voice barely audible. "The sound of the wind storm."

"Consider it done," Moons said. Five gave her a nod, eyes wandering away. Never could he imagine he’d be on the verge of a panic attack in a dentist chair. He exhaled heavily, full cheeks and hands trembling.

"I can sit right here, Five," Moons said, walking over to the corner of the room and pulling up the metal stool. "I'll turn on the audio feed for the wind. I'll watch the surgeon, and the monitors."

Five swallowed.

“I can’t afford your time.”

“Time is the one thing my organization has an abundance of,” she gave him a small but warm smile. Of course. She controlled timelines, she could have a few spare hours.

Five leaned his head back against the cushion. He gave her a nod, and two minutes later, a medical technician silently brought in a heavy, lead-lined emerald green thermal blanket, draping it over Five's body from his chest to his woolen-sock-covered feet. The crushing, comforting weight of it felt exactly like his old winter survival gear. From the wall speakers, the soft, low howl of a synthetic wind storm began to play, drowning out the high-pitched corporate hum of the Commission.

He looked at Moons one last time. She was sitting in the corner, her clipboard on her knees, her eyes fixed on him with absolute, unwavering protection.

Five took a deep breath of the sterile air, and nodded to the anesthetist. When the chemical darkness finally pulled him under, he didn't feel like he was drowning. He felt like someone else got to watch over him, even corporatively.

On the next day at 5pm Five entered the Director’s office. His jaw was still sore but painkillers were doing its job.

He wore that navy suit the Handler gifted him on day one. It still looked baggy, like he wore his dad's clothes as a joke, but in reality he was somewhere around his Reginald age when he adopted all of them. He wore a sweater under the jacket and those warm and thick woolen socks too. It felt cozy. Like he was in a private academy in the middle of teaching classes. At least it's what you seem to imagine when you hear a word so elite like an academy…

It was very warm in her office. No overhead lights, just the amber light on the desk table, and the drapes were fully closed. Five actually felt a huge relief… He already braced for a migraine spike, but instead, nothing pulsated behind his eyes.

“Take a seat, Five” Moons gestured to the chair across from her, looking over his suit jacket. Couldn't they tailor this suit so he wouldn't be swimming in it? Moons didn't comment on that. But the details like this really did show how many people in the commission didn't think of the others as living beings.

Five situated in the leather chair, trying not to scrunch his face at the way his joints were cracking and his lower back was coiled from sitting for a long time in the dentist chair yesterday.

As he settled into a pose that was almost comfortable, Moons shifted a heavy glass mug closer to the edge of the desk, inside there was something hot and dark and it smelled like… bitter coziness. It was the exact decaf concentrate he already grew to cherish. And on a small plate next to it was… One small piece of refined cane sugar and half of a plain biscuit.

Five froze on the spot. It's like his whole body recognised something long forgotten and consciousness screamed SUGAR!!! with sparkly dust floating around and butterflies flying in a chaotic dance. He'd grab it in less than a second if he had no restraint, but his moral compass talked to him - don't. This is a test. You can't. You're not a child.

Moons noticed the silent battlefield in his eyes, although she didn’t look at him directly.

“So I had a meeting with the medics earlier in the morning. They said for your brain to get accustomed to the Commission overstimulation system lacks glucose. Hence the migraine. We cannot talk about a full dessert just yet, but…” she nudged the plate “here's your official medical doping for today, Five. Strict prescription.”

Five looked at her under his eyebrows. She didn't point out the starvation, she called this sugar cube a prescription. This wording saved his fragile - at the moment - ego.

He reached out his skinny trembling hand, took the sugar cube and dropped it into a hot decaf, watching it melt. And then Five took the galette. For a man who got put off the desserts by a bad twinkle in the apocalypse this plain biscuit felt like a gift from gods.

“Thank you” he rasped. This was his first real word he said today. Moons finally met his eyes, and smiled, almost unnoticed.

“You're welcome, Five. Now. Let's talk facts.”

Five carefully chewed on the soaked galette and nodded.

“Since the Commission has all possible medical care, we can provide a good health service for you. Although… with some reservations.” She looked at him, assessed that he was ready to listen, then pulled out a medical record on paper and cleared her throat.

“Our doctors did a thorough assessment, and I want you to understand exactly what we are dealing with.

Before we look at the specifics, there is one anomalous variable that completely altered our projections: the Marigold. When our labs ran your blood panels and cultures, they were... astounded. These golden particles laced into your DNA are working overtime. They are incredibly aggressive, greedy things. The moment our intravenous fluids provided them with raw metabolic fuel, they started driving your cellular regeneration at an absolute, terrifying velocity. Frankly, without the Marigold, you wouldn't even have a baseline to recover from. It kept you alive for so long, and now that you have a proper fuel, you will heal differently. Of course we don't have much data for other marigold children and their blood to test all the theories. The percentage of recovery can increase or decrease, so. Something to keep in mind.

First, your gastrointestinal tract and microflora. We are looking at an 80% recovery rate. With targeted probiotics and a strict, specialized menu, the one that you started already, the Commission will get your stomach back to normal within six months to a year. However, you will have chronic triggers. For example, anything too fatty or too sweet will always make you nauseous, unfortunately.

Next, teeth and bones. Expected recovery is 90%. Yesterday's dentist appointment was one of the many more. This by far is the most positive outcome. We will strengthen your bone tissue with heavy doses of calcium and specialized therapy, but the joint damage from osteoporosis won't completely disappear. Your knees and lower back will ache when the weather changes, or right after you jump.

Now, your cardiovascular system. This is the most vulnerable part, capped at a 60% recovery ceiling. Your myocardium has been severely worn down by decades of cortisol-driven stress; it simply cannot fully regenerate. Our medical staff can support your blood vessels with medication, but your resting heart rate will always be elevated, chronic tachycardia. This is precisely why time jumps are a massive risk for your 53-year-old body. To your system, every single jump will feel like a micro-heart attack. We don't wanna do that.

Finally, your nervous system and vision are at 50%. Your eyes have spent forty years adjusting to the gray smog of the apocalypse. The sterile white, brightly lit corridors of the Commission are going to make them burn and water intensely. You will need specialized eye drops or adaptive glasses for the first few weeks.”

Five took another sip of the warm, bittersweet drink. The sharp throbbing behind his eyes began to subside, giving way to a pleasant heaviness. His brain, having finally received its first clean dose of glucose, started firing faster.

Moons turned a page in his personal file and, without looking up, asked, “Have you had a chance to look at the Commission Master Handbook yet? Any questions regarding the internal structure?”

Five set his mug back down on the desk. His voice still sounded thick and dry, but speaking was becoming easier. “Read the whole thing. No questions.”

Moons froze for a fraction of a second, lifting her eyes to look at him. A flash of genuine surprise, laced with a faint trace of respect, crossed her features. Regular recruits usually slaved over that thick folio of Commission regulations for weeks, falling asleep within the first hundred pages of legal gibberish. But sitting across from her was Five, a man who, out of sheer boredom in the apocalypse, had calculated complex quantum equations on the crumbling remains of walls. For him, the handbook was nothing more than light reading for a single evening.

“The whole thing? In just a few days?” She gave the pen in her hand a barely noticeable flick. “Well, that simplifies things. I assume you are fully aware of Paradox Psychosis then.”

Five gave a grim nod. “Actually… when exactly do my five years of service start?”

“Right after your quarantine,” Moons replied calmly.

Inside, Five completely freaked out. He had no time to waste. The Commission had promised to drop him off in any timeline and period of his choosing, but he was getting older by the day. Every extra week spent in this place could steal the physical strength he would desperately need to fight the apocalypse.

“Can we start now?”

Moons quirked an eyebrow. “Are you in a rush?”

“...Maybe,” Five muttered, his gaze dropping slightly. “I just want... to meet my family again.”

“Oh,” Moons murmured, shifting a paper on her desk. “Are they looking for you?”

Five clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. Whether on purpose or not, Moons had hit the nail right into his skull. It felt as though her heartless bitch persona was peaking right before his eyes for the very first time. No, they weren't looking for him. They hadn't looked for him when they were still alive, and then they died in the apocalypse. No one had been searching for little Number Five who ran away during breakfast on a cold November morning. But that didn't mean he would ever stop looking for them.

“Your body isn't ready for practical workloads just yet, Five,” Moons said, pulling a thick stack of heavy, neatly string-bound A4 sheets from her desk drawer. “This is the advanced theoretical framework for Special Operatives. The specifics of neutralizing temporal anomalies, probability calibration, and non-intervention protocols. While you are recovering in quarantine, your task is to study this. Without any rushing.”

He reached out a hand and took the bound sheets. The skin on his fingers was still pale, rough and texturized from decades of biting cold. Moons watched his movement closely.

“Are you warm enough in your quarters?” she asked quietly, suddenly dropping the dry, detached tone of the Director. “Did the wool items fit alright?”

Five hesitated for a second. It was wild and profoundly unfamiliar to have someone care about such mundane, domestic details. Just yesterday, the Handler had been evaluating his suit, his overall appearance, and his aesthetic potential. But Moons was asking about his core body temperature.

“Yes,” he muttered. “The socks... help. Thank you.”

“Good. If the room feels too quiet after the vast, open expanses of the apocalypse, let me know. The medical staff can set up a white noise generator in your box. The sound of rain, wind, even a smog-heavy storm, anything to help your brain loosen its grip and drift into a normal sleep. A lot of operatives can't handle the sterile silence of the dorms after prolonged missions.”

Five mentally flagged that detail. She understood the exact nature of his survival. In the ruins, dead silence meant nobody was around, but his subconscious was always coiled, waiting for the sudden crack of a collapsing concrete slab or approaching footsteps. White noise might actually work. He simply offered a silent nod, accepting her offer.

Moons shifted her focus back to his file, her expression turning thoroughly composed.

“Now, to the most critical matter. Your ability. Spatial jumps. The glucose you just received wasn't just to alleviate your migraine. Your jumps burn a colossal amount of blood sugar. Judging by your lab results, your reserves are currently at absolute zero. When was the last time you actually used your power?”

Five frowned, a bitter taste rising in his mouth as he forced his mind to look back. “I don't even remember,” he rasped honestly. “Years ago. Decades, maybe. At some point in the ruins, it just... stopped working.”

“Because the Marigold cannot run on empty,” Moons cut in, her voice hardening with the strict authority of a commander. “Those particles laced into your DNA are smart. They knew that if you kept blinking with zero metabolic fuel, your body would consume its own muscle tissue and organs just to clear the distance. The Marigold shut your powers down to keep you from accidentally vaporizing yourself, shifting every scrap of energy into basic cell survival. And it’s a miracle your worn-out heart didn’t stop from the sheer stress of your existence.”

She leaned forward slightly, her eyes locking onto his.

“For the duration of your quarantine, any time or space travel - these so-called 'blinks' - is strictly prohibited. I don't care what the Handler tells you. Your myocardium will not survive the spatial strain with your potassium and sugar levels this severely depleted. Do not even attempt it.”

Five tightened his grip on his mug. He despised being forbidden from doing anything, but the mathematical genius inside him begrudgingly agreed with her logic. He knew his body. He knew how it felt when the golden sparks in his veins turned sluggish and cold.

“In the future, your jumps will be utilized exclusively as a tactical element within a mission,” Moons continued, sliding her desk drawer shut. “For traveling between eras, protocol dictates that you will always carry a briefcase, a temporal transit case.”

Five quirked an eyebrow, a flash of his familiar, deeply ingrained arrogance sparking in his eyes. “I can travel through time on my own. I don't need your toys.”

Moons looked him dead in the eye, calmly, with the immense weight of someone looking at a stubborn but priceless child.

A stray cat trying to bite, she thought.

“You jumped on your own when you were thirteen, Five,” Moons said, her voice dropping into a heavy, resonant calm. “And you missed by forty years, getting stranded in a dead world because your biological matrix cannot calculate quantum coordinates with down-to-the-second precision without accounting for the expansion of the universe. The Commission's briefcase is not a 'toy.' It is a flawless navigator. It will make your jumps exact. And you will never have to fear jumping too far and being unable to find your way back again.”

Those words pierced the deepest, darkest wound in his soul. Moons had given a voice to his ultimate, most terrifying fear, the one he hid even from himself: the fear of miscalculating again and being locked away in an endless nowhere. The Commission's briefcase was a guarantee that he would never again be left entirely alone on the bones of civilization.

Five slowly lowered his gaze to the saucer dusted with galette crumbs. His pride cracked, but somehow it didn't feel humiliating.

“Anything else?” Moons asked.

“Spa treatment,” he joked, a dry attempt to break the sudden weight in the air.

Moons looked at him. Before she could register it as a joke, her mind had already raced through his medical schedule, genuinely considering adding something comforting to it.

“Meditation?” she asked seriously, already noting it down. “I can add herbal wraps right after your UV baths.”

Five blinked, completely caught off guard, and trailed his gaze away.

“Hot stones, perhaps?” a small chuckle finally escaped her lips.

Five furrowed his eyebrows for a second, and then a genuine smile broke through his features. She was joking along with him.

“Dismissed, Operative,” Moons said softly, closing his file. “Go back to your quarters and study the manuals. And don't forget to drink your evening nutrient mix.”

Five stood up, pressing the bound sheets of theory tightly against his chest. He offered her a barely noticeable, uncharacteristically polite nod of his head and headed for the door. Inside his thick woolen socks, his shoes no longer chafed his feet, the Handler's suit didn't feel quite so foreign anymore, and ahead of him lay an entire night of reading and safe, warm silence.

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