PATHOS •| Five Hargreeves |•

iv

She could have cried, but the ability had been taken away. Instead she sat in front of the fire contemplating if she would feel a burn with these stupid bracelets on. 

Any other time Five would have entered with a smartass joke and plopped down beside her, but he knew what the bands were. They had all overheard. She could still use her powers, but good ol Reggie engineered these bands to turn off her emotions. After too many missions of her being affected he'd had enough.

Now she was a walking talking corpse, like the woman in the mental hospital....

So that’s what he had meant.

She had wanted to scream, and cry, and rage because how could he take away the one thing that defined her. How could she be an empath with no emotion of her own? Instead it was like all the chemicals and hormones inside her ran into a wall, separated from her heart and soul that ached being all alone. 

“He said it’ll only be for a couple of months,” she whispered a smile nor frown adorning her lips. The sight was scarier than the one he faced each time she almost overloaded. Maybe it was that which led him to his next impulsive decision.

“Take away my emotions,” he said. The grimness with which she replied chilled his bones. “Why?”

“Because you’re not going through this alone. It can just be while we sit here.” It sucked that she didn’t swoon at what he thought was a really… romantic gesture? Luther said hi to Allison and she basically melted, but Five couldn’t get ahead of himself. He understood why it could never be that easy, and he didn’t care. 

Emery lifted her hand watching as multicolored energies flew from his body taking all wits and everything that made him with it. Draining a person's emotions was easy enough, much easier than manipulating or creating, the thought should have been a scary one.

When Emery couldn't feel anything else she dropped her hand, and they both sat silent in the dark library. They were two lumps on a log, and the problem was they were so odd already no one passing by thought anything of it.

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There was little she could do, and she was in her own home. The worst part was this wasn't a new feeling, she had been more powerless before. Moping felt like a waste of time, but she had to admit it felt quite nice. Doing so in Five’s room, a place she had only snuck into, made it even better. The room had long lost it’s warmth of him, and was covered in thick dust from years of neglect, a reminder of his absence. 

She had loved him, she still did, but she had realized when it was too late. These past two days she had stared up, negating her emotions, and wondered where they would be if their lives were normal. 

She wasn't one for taking away feeling, when she believed it to be such a brilliant treasure, but this time she knew it would be in everyone's best interest.

“Children behave...”

Emery bolted up and off the bed losing her concentration l, an apology about to spill from her mouth like she had trained herself to do years ago. As the sound continued she realized it was only music blaring from down the hall. Part of her mind, the really pathetic part, wanted to groan and flop back on the bed, but then she thought...

If Five were here she would definitely dance, he would pretend to be annoyed, but would end up tapping his foot. Nothing more of course, but that would be all she would need. It brought a smile to her face, and she hopped up.

“And then you put your arms around me as we tumble to the ground and then you say...”

Her feet immediately started doing the mashed potatoes, she was a fifties baby at heart, but her moves were so sixties from all the nights she had didn't dancing with her mother.

She attempted a lean back, something Allison had taught when they were teenagers, like then she still looked ridiculous. 

“And so we’re running just as fast we can...”

She did the pony in a figure eight formation laughing as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. 

“And then you put your arms around me as we tumble to the ground and then you say...”

Her arms wrapped around her torso as she shimmied her shoulders back slowly until they were touching the bed. She did a roll over shoulder standing up on the other side of the bed

“I think we’re alone now...”

She did a very smooth locomotion, pulling her hair free from it’s ponytail.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone around...”

She did a turn around herself, her arms outstretched. The song kept going and so she bound around ecstatically, peppering in some cha cha slide with her hitchhiker which was probably the most ironic mix.

Lightning struck outside flashing a bright blue in the dark, and Emery who had her back turned was thrown straight into the dresser. A cut framing the top of her head. Holding her lightly bleeding forehead in one hand she carried herself down the stairs on shaky feet all the way into the back yard. Where her other siblings stood before a... black hole?

Klaus shoved passed her, his arms outstretched with a fire extinguisher. “Idiot,” Emery mumbled watching with clenched eyebrows as he threw it at the... whatever it was. What is that gonna do?” Allison gasped.

“I don’t know, do you have a better idea?”

“Probably,” Emery hissed her voice gasping as her siblings fear mixed with her own. Diego heard, and pulled her back by her blazer. Luther saw the gesture and immediately had to one up him by shuffling forward. “Everyone get behind me.”

“Yeah,” Diego spoke up shoving back, “get behind us.” Emery couldn’t focus on them or their idiocy. She only had eyes for the ever expanding blue portal as an old man seemed to be emerging from the other side. It closed up as the person fell from it, but he was no longer topped by a head of white hair.

Luther blocked her view, but when she was finally able to duck under his stiff arm her eyes took in the last person she expected to see. His eyes were frantic darting around the courtyard at each of his siblings, until she tumbled out from the middle of their clump. 

Everything was clearly so different now, but they had stayed the same in an ever changing world together.