REWRITTEN.
The skin on the left side of her chest began to itch. Half asleep, she absently rubbed at the stinging spot where the bullet had hit, the silky like scarbeneath her fingertips tingling and oddly numb despite the ache within her ribcage.
Her mind drifted to Five's wounded side. Her intent was that he'd only be left with a shallow wound crusted over like a scab.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Violet had her head resting back against the seat of the couch, legs sprawled out in front of her on the floor. She was too exhausted to even fidget, all of the life having been literally drained from her for a time.
She was in such a sluggish daze that she barely noticed the hand twitch within her own, or the sudden shift of weight behind her.
Violet was shocked awake by a pair of arms wrapping around her shoulders from behind, a face buried against her shoulder.
Her muscles tightened, breath hitching as she froze. But when she glimpsed the familiar blue of his sleeves, she melted into the hold and weakly held onto his arms around her, resting her head against the side of his.
Concern washed over her as she realised the arms around her were shaking. There was a wet warmth against her shoulder and a flurry of emotions swarmed her as she realised that Five Hargreeves was crying.
Tears welled in her own eyes and she forced herself to close them tightly to make it stop.
"I thought you were really gone this time."
It was so faint she barely heard it.
Her heart stuttered at the break in his voice. She didn't even get a chance to consider what his words truly meant, too caught up in the moment.
The two held eachother as tight as each of them could manage in their weak states.
"I'm sorry."
Violet couldn't even comprehend what he was saying.
"I'm sorry," his voice cracked. "I'm sorry. It's my fault."
Violet was weak but managed to squeeze his arm, burying her face against it while her eyebrows knitted together.
She didn't want to hear it, but Five couldn't go on without vocalising it.
"I'm sorry." She echoed in such the slightest whisper she was scared he wouldn't hear it.
But he did.
He shifted slightly to pull away, frowning deeply.
She craned her head to meet his eye, her gaze hollow and fractured. Their noses were just centimeters away from eachother and neither seemed to care.
"Why would you be sorry?" He asked faintly.
"I didn't mean to scare you," she murmured, tears forming. Her hand brushed the reddish scar across her chest through her torn, bloody shirt. Panic clawed at her throat as she realised Five might not like her for lying to him. She hated lying. It hurt. She was lying to the only person who she never wanted to. "I-I'm sorry. I-"
Five pushed himself up with a barely concealed groan as she began to delve into her thoughts, hands picking feverishly at the dried blood on her skin, nails digging in. The pain didn't seem to register as she began silently crying to herself.
He quickly swung his legs over the side of the couch and crouched beside her, movements stiff. He tried to take her hands away from her skin to stop her hurting herself but she made a noise of protest and flinched away, accidentally elbowing him in the side in her panic.
He held back a groan, hunching over on himself as she caught his half healed over wound.
Violet saw the barely concealed pain on his face and guilt took over.
She covered her face with her hands and cried harder.
"I'm so-" she couldn't get the words out, overwhelmed by everything. "I'm-"
She hated the way she thought, the way she reacted to insignificant things, the fact she couldn't even properly apologise for hurting him when she was too caught up in pushing his touch away.
"No, no, no, it's okay-"
He put his hands up, palms facing her to show he wasn't going to do anything but she flinched back, ducking her head down slightly.
"Sorry I didn't- didn't-" she felt like the words in her throat were made of glass and she was choking again. "I-"
"Violet, listen to me, it's okay!" He tried. "You didn't hurt me, I'm fine-"
But she just kept shaking her head, the words she wanted to say suffocating her. Why couldn't she just say them?
Her hands linked around the back of her neck as she kicked insinctivey out at the coffee table, frustration building up. She kicked it again with a clatter and something fell off the other side. She didn't care if it was broken or not, she didn't care.
Five kept trying to tell her, talk to her, get her to listen to his voice but she couldn't because she couldn't think.
"Violet, I know-"
She avoided his gaze and turned away from him, closing her eyes.
"I know, I know-"
This time his arms wrapped tightly around her, forcing her into a hug, his chin resting on her shoulder. Instead of softening into the embrace her muscles turned to stone, arms trapped so she couldn't pick at her skin or dig her nails in.
"I know already!" he rushed out. "It's never taken that long before, that's why I panicked."
She was still crying, eyes closed tightly.
"I know. I know. It's okay."
She shook her head, refusing to open her eyes, because none of it made any sense.
She couldn't breathe properly and the touch was heavy but she couldn't bring herself to fight back against his tightly wound arms.
His voice softened slightly. "You were gone for days, Violet..." he buried his face into her shoulder as she reopened her eyes, taking a deep shuddering breath. "I really thought it happened this time."
The shock slowly set in as she focussed on the warmth around her and her breathing settling ever so slightly.
She tried to speak. She tried to ask how. She wanted to ask what he knew. She didn't understand.
Five continued, not realising his touch and voice were lulling her into a slow sense of calm.
"I saw how you looked at me when I told you what I knew about doomsday," he revealed shakily. "Like- like you didn't really believe me."
"I do." She had to cut in, even if her voice was a wavering wreck.
"Not when I told you everyone dies in eight days."
She froze, her eyes widening a fraction as she realised what he was getting at.
"I know you can't die," he whispered into her ear.
Violet's eyelids fluttered closed as she released a breath she didn't know she had been holding.
How did he know how did he know how did he know-
"I never told you. I'm sorry." He continued quietly, so gently into her ear so she would relax in his arms. She did ever so slightly with her mind racing a mile a minute. "I did lie."
She couldn't speak. She wouldn't know what to say even if she could.
And when she connected the dots to what he was saying, her stomach dropped.
Maybe a small part of her knew it all along, maybe she had been ignoring the thought creeping up on her ever since he had got back, ever since he had told her.
She knew he had been lying.
Everyone dies.
She knew deep down but was so afraid of what it meant that she didn't want to question it.
"I wasn't on my own. I had you."
She closed her eyes, not wanting to believe him.
Had.
I had you.
"What happened?"
He knew what she meant but he hesitated.
The real question behind her words - why hadn't she come back with him?
So he held her and told her the truth. All of it, this time.
Maybe it was better he was staring over her shoulder - how could he possibly meet her eye?
They had survived together simply because Violet could not die. He thought he was alone, but he wasn't, and Violet had awoken amongst the rubble, amongst her dead siblings, trapped in the horror of it all.
She hadn't spoken a word to him for three years while they barely survived.
The first time she did over a campfire, he cried. He'd tried to hide the tears and bitter smile from her but she had seen it.
Then the Handler showed up. Offered him a deal, a way out.
Five of course had been the one to shake on it, while she had watched cautiously half hidden behind his shoulder and clutching his dust torn jacket.
He wasn't able to stop what happened next.
All he knew was that they were gone, and Violet had not been with them.
The Handler had planned it all along as incentive. To take Five, because he was a true killer, had what it took, but leave her behind because she was weak. Fragile.
(That was what she had told him at the time.)
In reality, leaving her had been the plan, because with her withheld from him just barley out of reach - Five would do as he was ordered and not question a thing. He would complete his six year contract and only then, when he had done his job, would he be able to get her back.
If he broke the contract he would never see her again and live with the fact he had doomed her to suffer in a wasteland alone for all eternity.
If he did his few years of service, they could reunite and retire to a timeline of their choice.
Just more lies to keep him complicit.
He did the six years then waited for them to get Violet back. Instead they asked more of him, proposed more work, more years.
And then he began to see what kind of organisation the Commission really were. So he did the only thing he could. It was save the world or go back to the one person he couldn't face - because he had already left her for six years.
He took the cowards way out.
She just stared off into the distance, her heart heavy in her chest.
Five did the same, unable to lift his eyes from the floor, haunted by things he wished he wasn't thinking about.
The two stayed like that for a very long time, disregarding the fact that time was exactly what they were running out of.