Work Text:
“G-give me back my knife!”
You roll your eyes and shut your door, trying to tune out the sound. Free time is valuable and you only have nine minutes left, and you won’t spend it listening to One and Two argue over something nobody cares about.
“I didn’t take it!” One shouts back, and you groan.
You try to concentrate on the fashion magazine in front of you, but it’s no use. A dull thud echoes in your room as someone is pushed against the hallway wall. That’s enough.
The creak of your door opening isn’t enough to distract the boys, so you clear your throat loudly. “What are you doing?”
“Stay out of this, Three,” says Two from where he’s pinned against the wall. “It’s none of your business.”
“It is my business if you’re being loud right by my room!”
One gives her an apologetic glance. “Sorry, Three. We’ll go somewhere else.” You smile in response.
Two snorts. He has a lot of attitude for someone who’s losing the fight. “Y-you always t-take his s-s-side,” he says, and you roll your eyes. “And you,” he continues, turning back to One, “you’d jump off a c-cliff if she told you to.”
“I wouldn’t,” One says, giving Two another shove. “And what does that have to do with anything?”
Two huffs, angry but unable to form words. Instead, he wrenches his arm out of One’s grasp, sending them both careening into the opposite wall. You sigh, exasperated. This was not how you thought free time would go. They brawl for a few more minutes before you yell over them, “I heard a rumor that you stopped fighting!”
The two boys spring back, still fuming but unable to attempt hostility. Finally. You’re sure everyone else on this floor will be thanking you for the peace and quiet later.
“N-not fair, Three,” says Two. “You can’t just take our choice away like that.”
You roll your eyes. “Maybe I wouldn’t have felt the need to if you two could just get along. Or at least go fight somewhere else.”
One shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “Look, maybe things got a little out of hand,” he concedes, and you feel a rush of satisfaction at him agreeing with you. “But Two’s right. It feels…weird, to want to do something but not be able to.”
“That’s one word for it,” Two mutters under his breath. “You c-can’t just control us b-because of what you want.”
You frown, anger replacing your annoyance. “So it’s fine for One to use his strength on you, and you can use your knives against us, but I can’t use my power? Yeah, sounds really fair, Two.”
One shakes his head and interjects. “That’s not what I—”
“Whatever,” you say, retreating back into your bedroom. You’ve heard enough. You don’t open up the fashion magazine again because you can’t focus on it. You feel sort of sick, like you might throw up, but you aren’t sick. You just feel uncomfortable.
When the bell rings for lunch, you sit down at the table with everyone else, but you don’t eat anything.
“Rumor! Can you tell us more about what it’s like being a part of the Umbrella Academy?”
You smile at the reporter asking you the question. You’re doing an interview again. You haven't done very many yet, and being out in public is still new to all of you. Dad insists that these interviews will cultivate a relationship with the public and allow them to help more people, but you just like seeing yourself on the covers of magazines. Your siblings sit around you on various couches, all waiting for you to answer the question, hanging onto your every word. You always were the best at these things.
“It’s an honor,” you begin humbly. “We strive to serve our community every day, and it helps that we all love doing it.” You add a cheeky little smile. Once you get past the obligatory ‘serving our community’ part, you’re free to add your own flair. “Plus, I have the best job.”
The reporter looks up from his little notebook. Seeing it makes you a little nauseated, but you can’t place why. “You all are so selfless. The viewers want to know about who you are outside of missions. What are some of your hobbies?”
You endure a brief, silent pause before speaking up again. “I love fashion,” you say, which is a little ironic because you’re wearing your uniform and it’s one of the ugliest pieces of clothing you’ve ever seen. “And acting.”
“I like aviation,” Luther says, and Diego rolls his eyes. “I build model planes.”
Nobody else says anything. The Academy leaves little time for hobbies, but even if it did, the list of activities that Dad would approve of is minuscule at best. “We’re very busy,” you say, by way of explanation. “We spend a lot of time on training and school.”
“That’s the perfect segue,” says the reporter, and you flash a smile like you knew this all along. “I was actually going to ask about that. You’re homeschooled, right? Do you guys have favorite subjects?”
“I like literature,” says Ben, who gets an approving nod from Luther. Literature is an acceptable study and something that’s okay to talk about to the press, and since Ben is not expected to speak as much in interviews, he’s filled his quota for the day.
An awkward silence hangs in the air. With the exception of Ben and Five, none of you much like school. It’s grueling, exhausting, and most of the time not very fun.
“Does lunch count?” Klaus asks, and that gets a laugh. (Lunch isn’t much fun either; talking is forbidden, but you all have devised a methodical system of passing notes under the table, and it’s so far been unmentioned by Dad.)
With the tension diffused, the reporter asks another question. “Well, that’s okay. You’re definitely not the only kids who don’t like school. But you must be excited that Christmas is right around the corner! Any special items you’re hoping Santa brings you?”
You laugh, because it doesn’t seem like anyone else is going to say anything. Your hand reflexively reaches to smooth down your hair. “We’re grateful for anything we get.”
It’s not until you’re back in the car and on the way home that Klaus asks, “Who the hell is Santa?”
You stare out the open window and look out at the stars. They twinkle against the dark sky. You wonder what it must be like to be out so far.
“Hey.”
You startle and turn around, but it’s just Luther. He’s in his pajamas, just like you are. His hair is still tousled from sleep, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “Hi.”
“So things have been a little tense lately,” Luther says, joining you on the window’s ledge.
That’s an understatement. Things have been tense since Five left four years ago and the rest of you realized that leaving was a real possibility. Now, at seventeen, the conflict is more pronounced than ever: stay or go?
You know what you’re deciding. “Yeah,” you say to Luther, for lack of other words. That’s one of the things you love most about Luther. You don’t have to spin some lie to fill the empty space. You can just exist.
“Help me understand, Allison,” he presses, anguished. “I want to understand why you all feel the need to leave.”
If you were Diego, you’d get riled up about Luther trying to sway your decision. If you were Klaus, you’d scoff and walk away without even bothering. But you’re not Diego or Klaus. “I think we all want freedom. We want to be in a place where we’re not being watched. Somewhere that’s ours.”
“This place is ours,” Luther protests. “We come up here all the time, right?”
“Well, yeah,” you concede. “But it’s Dad’s first. I mean, think about it. If he comes up here right now and catches us out of bed, do you think we’ll say ‘well, this place is ours so you can’t tell us to leave?’”
Luther’s silence is all the confirmation you need.
“We wouldn’t. Because he controls us. He controls everything about our lives. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wear those uniforms forever.”
Luther frowns. “If you hate the uniforms that much, I’m sure you could talk to Dad about it.”
“It’s not about the uniforms,” you say, shaking your head. He wants to understand, but maybe he just can’t. Maybe you just don’t understand each other anymore. “It’s all of it, okay? The training. The missions. I just don’t want to do it anymore.”
“I thought you saw the importance of what we’re doing,” says Luther, and your heart hurts. “You always used to say that helping people was an honor. You got that when nobody else did.”
Your throat constricts and for one horrifying second, you think you might cry. “I said that to the press, Luther. Because that’s what we were supposed to say to make sure the public liked us.”
“You don’t believe it,” Luther concludes, and it’s less of an accusation and more of a realization that he doesn’t want to have. “You don’t believe in the team.”
The remaining part of his thought went unspoken: you don’t believe in me.
“No, Luther,” you plead, reaching for his hand and interlocking your fingers. “It’s not that I don’t believe in the team. It’s just that I believe in other things, too, and I want to see what’s out there. Don’t you?”
You want him to say yes. You want him to say yes so badly, because then you don’t have to sacrifice. You can leave the Academy but keep your family.
“Everything I need is here,” he says instead, and you choke on a sob.
You don’t mean to start crying, but you can’t help it now. It pours out of you like the breaking of a dam. Luther wraps an arm around you and you sit there like that, staring out at the stars.
You leave the Academy one week later. When you do, you leave alone.
Your stomach lurches with apprehension, but it’s not the nerves you used to feel before missions or training with Dad. It’s excitement, and a desire to do well, and you find that it’s not a bad feeling at all. In just a few minutes, you will be auditioning for your first movie. Your hair is immaculately styled and you spent an hour last night picking out your outfit (It’s a lot harder to select outfits than you thought it would be; wearing the same uniform your entire life doesn’t build skills like that.)
You drum your fingers on the side of your chair and wait until it’s your turn.
“Nervous?”
There’s a man sitting next to you. You hadn’t noticed him before, but now you can’t look away. He flips through the pages of the script used for auditions but never takes his eyes off you.
“A little,” you say, smiling. “What about you?”
“A little.”
You laugh. “I’m Allison.”
“Patrick.”
“Well, Patrick,” you say, hoping this is a thing that regular people do. Sometimes you can’t tell if it's natural or if it’s something you saw in a movie. Dad didn’t exactly have training for this scenario. “Would you like to run lines with me?”
He does, and you’re feeling more comfortable once you’ve gone through the scene a few times. You can’t tell if he recognizes you from the Academy or if he’s just trying to be nice, but it helps either way.
An austere woman slips out of the audition room. “Allison Hargreeves, you’re up next.”
Patrick glances over at you. “Hargreeves?”
The question is implied, and you give a little modest shrug. “Yes,” you confirm. “But I’m focusing on acting now.”
“You know,” he says, turning his attention away from his script and up at you, “I never really cared much for the Umbrella Academy. No offense.”
You beam. “Want to know a secret? Neither did I.” You feel the need to clarify the fact that you’re not a bad sister. “The missions, anyway. I love my siblings.”
You haven’t seen your siblings in the year since you left the Academy, actually. It’s hard to keep in contact with them while you’re out in California. You don’t even know what they’re doing anymore, or their phone numbers, if they even have phones. The only person you could feasibly reach would be Luther, but that would require going through Dad or Mom or Pogo first, so that’s a nonstarter.
“I’m sure you’ll be great in there,” Patrick says, just before it’s your turn to go in. He scrawls something on the blank space on his script and rips the section off. “My phone number. Call me sometime.”
You grin and accept it. When you audition, the panel is distracted and doesn’t register your hard work. It’s no big deal, because you hear a rumor that they let you go again.
Claire is screaming.
You love your daughter. You really do. But she’s three years old and she won’t stop crying and she won’t eat her vegetables. How the hell did Reginald get seven young children to eat their vegetables every day? Right. With those cold, dead eyes and a threat of violence.
“Claire,” you plead, but she continues to cry. “Eat your carrots and you’ll be all done.”
Her little face scrunches up when she cries. It looks like she’s just swallowed a lemon. You would find it adorable if you weren’t so goddamn tired.
“Claire,” you say again, getting her attention. “I heard a rumor that you were calm.”
The crying stops, and the room is blessedly silent. Your breath comes easily again. The rumor falls so easily from your lips that you haven’t even realized what you’ve done until you watch your daughter’s eyes go milky white. They fade back to brown again and Claire’s face relaxes.
It was so easy. The words are so smooth as you say them. Effortless. You don’t even have to think about it.
“Can you eat your carrots for me?” you ask lightly, still treading carefully so she doesn’t melt down again. But she won’t. You made sure of it.
Claire shakes her head, and you feel a rush of inexplicable relief. “I don’t like carrots, Mommy.”
Her voice is placid and her tears have dried. She’s calm, just like you asked. She still doesn’t like carrots. There’s nothing funny about it, but you laugh anyway. “You need to eat your vegetables, Claire,” you say gently. “What about some celery?”
She accepts the celery, the carrots are thrown away, and you feel better. Claire still got to choose in the end, didn’t she? She was always going to calm down, you just sped up the process. There’s no use in delaying the inevitable.
You’re cleaning up from lunch just as the phone rings. “Hello?”
“Allison,” the voice on the other end says, deceptively light and casual. “How are you?”
“Klaus?” you ask, nearly dropping your dish towel. You hear some commotion in the background. “Where are you?”
“Oh, just taking a small sabbatical,” he answers vaguely. “I really just needed some self-care time, you know? I’m sure you know.”
You pause. When you speak, it’s not even a question. “You’re in rehab.”
“Well, if that’s what you want to call it…”
You don’t know who finally forced Klaus to go to rehab. Maybe it was Diego. Maybe it was the police, and this was just a way out of jail time. Back at the Academy, nobody really spoke about Klaus’ problem aloud, but you all knew it was there. It’s nice to see that he’s finally getting help. “I’m proud of you,” you offer.
“Oh, thanks,” Klaus says. “Proud enough to do me a small favor?”
He asks you to pay for the rehab. You’re a little pissed that he called you just to ask for money, but you pay for it anyway. “Just please try this time, okay?” you ask.
“I am trying,” he assures you fruitlessly. “Really. They have this whole plan and everything. It involves therapy. And guided meditation. But I might skip that part.”
You bite back a sigh. “I’m serious, Klaus. This isn’t the time to be self destructive.”
Klaus scoffs. “You’re one to talk.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you really want to lecture me about addiction, Allison?” he asks, sounding more tired than angry. “But I’m the only one with a problem. You can stop whenever you want, right?”
You can feel your heart pound in your chest, and you’re worried for a second that it might burst right out. It doesn’t. “What are you—”
“It’s not a coincidence that you got so famous so quickly,” he mutters. God, he doesn’t even sound angry, and that’s almost worse. It’s like he’s been expecting it. “I mean, we’re all thinking it.”
Who is ‘we’? Exactly how many people are thinking this about you? You don’t ask Klaus these questions. “Goodbye, Klaus,” you say, before hanging up the phone.
Claire is still seated at her high chair, watching you with wide eyes. You let yourself get lost in her eyes and you don’t think about Klaus’ problem again.
The world speeds by you in flashes of color, and you try not to throw up.
Your father is dead, and that’s not the worst part. The worst part is the fact that you’re going back to the Academy, to a sister who called you “selfish and vain,” and to brothers that don’t know how to communicate. Worse still is the fact that your husband filed for divorce and your daughter is no longer your daughter, but a girl who you are occasionally allowed supervised visits with.
God, this has all gotten so fucked up.
You think of Vanya’s book and the visceral reaction that the press had. They spent the entire next year interrogating you about the Academy, and just when you’d started to move on again, you have to go back.
But you’re going to be diplomatic. Maybe the boys won’t, but you will, because you’re trying to be better. You’ve stopped using your rumors and you’re trying to set a good example for your daughter the way no one set a good example for you. You’ll be polite, even to Vanya.
She was hurting, too.
The car pulls up to the Academy. You pay the driver.
You step inside.
“And here’s where we’ll put our wedding pictures,” says Ray, gesturing to a spot near the kitchen table. “What do you think?”
“I think,” you say, your voice raspy but usable, “that the place is beautiful.”
Sometimes, you look around at your life and you can’t quite believe it’s real. You have Ray and you’re moving into his house, and you did it without a single rumor. It feels good. Like you actually deserve it.
“I know it’s not much,” Ray says, but you shake your head.
“It’s perfect,” you say, and mean it.
You eat dinner at the table and watch television on the couch and it’s the domestic bliss you always wanted but never dared to hope for. In a few weeks, you and Ray will be married. Your throat has healed enough to speak at the wedding, thankfully.
But something won’t let you relax completely. “Ray,” you say, trying to keep your voice from trembling. “I have something to tell you.”
He looks at you, expectant. You want to tell him about Claire and Patrick, but the words get stuck in your throat, and you choke on a sob. You cry into his shoulder as he rubs your back. Your tears get his shirt wet but he doesn’t even mind, which only makes you cry harder. Words aren’t usually this hard for you. You can shape them exactly how you want, most of the time. Ever since your injury, you can barely pry them out at all.
“I had a daughter,” you gasp out eventually. “Claire.”
Saying her name is liberating. It’s like you’ve finally found your voice again.
Ray lets you talk about her. He’s not mad that you were with another man before him. You leave out the things about powers and time travel and the Academy, but you keep all the stuff that matters.
Telling Ray about your past breaks the barrier, and suddenly you’re talking again. You organize events with Ray and Odessa. You speak out against racism and anything else that you can. You make a real, tangible difference in Dallas with your words alone.
You build a life all on your own, for the very first time.
For the hundredth time that week, you stare into the amber liquid of your drink and think about how fucked up everything’s gotten.
You’re so tired. You’re tired of the pain and the grief and the lying. You hadn’t realized how much you were lying about until you stopped doing it, but that’s when your siblings decided they were worried about you. When you finally started being honest.
“Want some company?”
Five, of all people, joins you at the bar. He must be ridiculously hungover. You’re not; you didn’t drink on the night of the wedding because you knew what would be coming after. “No,” you say, irritated. “I don’t, actually.”
“Neither do I,” Five says, but makes no move to leave. Asshole. “I assume you know which way you’ll be voting.”
You scoff. “I do. And if you’ve come to change my mind, it’s not happening.”
“I’m not here to change your mind,” he replies. He makes himself a drink since there’s no bartender left to do it. “I’m retired, remember? I’m just here for the drink. So. You’re going with Reginald.”
It’s not a question, it’s a statement. “I have to get her back, Five. I’m done lying to myself about being fine with sacrifice because I’m not. I’ve given up everything for this family and for once, I need to go after what I want.”
Five shrugs. “Well, I can’t fault you for that.”
“I meant what I said about sucking up my pain,” you say, your voice shaking despite your certainty. “Maybe this family needs to learn that just because I wasn’t drugged up and lied to or stuck in the apocalypse doesn’t mean I’m not hurting.”
You wince internally, regretting your choice of words, but Five doesn’t seem to mind. Retirement must be doing wonders for him. “I think there’s a lot this family could stand to learn.”
“Tell me about it,” you say, taking a swig of your drink. It burns on the way down.
“I know it’s not fair,” Five says grimly. “And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you lost them. If this is what you feel needs to be done, I won’t stop you.”
That’s a first.
“But I will caution you,” he continues. And there it is. “Dad is notoriously manipulative. We know this. We grew up with this. I just want to make sure that you don’t end up somewhere worse.”
“Worse than this?” you bite out, anger flaring up again. “Nothing is worse than this.”
“Alright,” he says softly, nodding as if he’s trying to convince himself. He shifts on his feet like he wants to pace around, but won’t. “You’re an adult. You can make your own decisions.”
You roll your eyes. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission.”
Five doesn’t react to the vitriol. “Good luck, Allison. I truly do hope you find her.”
Your anger abates ever so slightly. “Thank you.”
Five disappears in a flash of blue, and you’re left alone again.
You swallow the rest of your drink. It isn’t even very good, but it settles your nerves just enough. In a few minutes, it will be time to vote. You won’t be sacrificing your family for the good of the group anymore. You’ll fight for Claire and Ray until you have them back with you, or you’ll die trying.
If they don’t vote in your favor, you’ll fight anyway.