Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As always, Grace gets up with the sun. Today will be a good day. Eighteen degrees outside, with a cloud coverage of only twenty-seven percent, and almost no wind — a perfect day for the children to go practice outside.

She passes in front of the children’s bedrooms on her way down to the kitchen. It’s not the shortest way there, but it’s part of her routine. Grace functions better when she can tell the children had a good night’s sleep.

She can always tell when they haven’t — and sometimes, if they haven’t and are awake, she can try to help them.

Grace takes mental inventory as she walks past each bedroom. She can hear Number One grumbling in his sleep — it’s a string of meaningless sounds, really, but something inside Grace’s processors enjoys hearing it anyway. Number Two’s and Number Three’s rooms are silent, but that is just as usual as Number’s One isn’t.

Number Four…

Grace comes to a halt in front of Number Four’s room. The door is shut, and Grace tilts her head to the side as she analyzes it.

The door had been open since yesterday morning, when Reginald had pulled Number Four away for personalized training. She calculates a ninety-seven percent probability that the door being closed now means Number Four’s training session ended, and that he’s back in his room now.

For some inexplicable reason, she wants to open that door now, check that he’s really here. He hadn’t been there at lunch yesterday, nor at dinner, and Grace… worried.

She worries still.

Number Four is fine, her programming whispers. The children are always fine.

But… Number Four’s room isn’t silent.

Grace can hear sniffling coming from inside, the almost silent kind of crying the children used to have after a nightmare. Grace has memories of comforting them after those, before Reginald had made her stop, telling her the children are too old for mollycoddling now.

He hadn’t changed her programming though. Grace can still go to the children if they need someone.

She has, sometimes, though lately, Grace has noticed them being more reluctant to accept her help. Grace knows why, of course — they’re growing up, growing into tough and strong little men and women. Reginald is right, and they don’t need her to be as present as she’d used to be.

But Number Four is crying, and Grace was made to care for those children.

She sighs, and knocks on the door quietly.

Number Four instantly falls silent.

He stays silent for long enough that Grace starts to wonder if maybe he fell back to sleep, and she considers leaving. Part of her is acutely aware of the minutes trickling by — she should be halfway through making breakfast now — but still, she remains here, standing in front of Number’s Four door.

She knocks again.

Finally, Number Four’s voice comes. “Who is it?” he asks. His voice is soft, eighty-two percent quieter than his usual tone.

Grace drops her tone to match. “It’s me, sweetheart.”

“Oh.” For a moment, she can only hear him breathe. It is… disquieting.

Grace starts to feel uneasy. “Can I come in?”

“I… Dad isn’t with you?” Number Four asks.

“Just me,” Grace promises.

“Okay then,” Number Four replies quietly, and Grace slowly opens the door.

Number Four’s bedroom isn’t as dark as she’d been expecting. Grace’s eyes don’t even need to adjust for her to see as clearly as she had in the corridor.

Number Four’s blinds are open. They let in the early morning sunlight, and Number Four sits directly in front of it, bundled up in his bed’s stolen sheets.

Grace tuts as she bends down to his level.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on the bed?”

Number Four shakes his head, oddly muted. His eyes dart to the sides nervously, and Grace makes sure she moves in front of him, that all he can see is her.

Slowly, the shakiness seems to drain out of him. When Grace ushers him, he moves back up to his bed, though he keeps the blankets wrapped around him.

“Are you alright?” Grace asks, processors already registering all the ways his body is telling her his not.

Number Four bites his lips, gnawing on it. It’s bleeding already, and Grace frowns. That has to be painful.

Grace sighs. “Stop it,” she asks sternly, smiling when Number Four does.

“There, that’s better,” she says. “Now why don’t you try to lie down for a bit? You still have” thirty-four minutes, nineteen seconds “time before you have to get up for breakfast.”

As she says this, she goes to unwrap him from his blankets. While she doesn’t doubt its warmth, this can’t be a comfortable position to sleep in.

Getting Number Four to untuck his legs and spread them out is easy — getting him to release his death grip on his sheets is nearly impossible. She has to pry the fingers open one by one, as gentle as she knows to be, and it takes time.

Number Four watches her with watery eyes, and he doesn’t let out a sound.

Grace frowns as she finds herself looking at his hands. She blinks.

“Oh,” she says, and lets go of them. Instantly, Number Four tucks them out of sight.

“It’s nothing,” he mumbles. “I’m fine.”

But the image is already engraved in her data banks. “That wasn’t nothing,” she scolds. “Let me have a look.”

Number Four opens his mouth to protest, but Grace looks at him, and he caves in. He pulls his hands back out from under the sheets.

His fingertips are in terrible shape. At first, Grace wonders if Number Four might have bitten them to the flesh, but after a few seconds of observations, it seems more likely he simply scratched something until they broke and bled.

Number Four hisses softly as she lifts his hands and turns them over, revealing angry-red half-moon cuts on his palms.

They are hot under her fingertips, and Grace’s frown grows deeper. “These will need disinfecting,” she states.

Number Four nods, drawing his knees up to his chest. “I know. I already did it when I came back.”

“Came back?” Grace echoes.

Number Four freezes. “I… His eyes dart to the door. It’s open, but only a little. Nobody is outside — Grace would be able to tell — and everyone else on this floor is asleep.

“It’s just the two of us, honey. You can tell me anything,” Grace prods.

“I…” Number Four licks his lips nervously. “Dadlockedmeinsidethemausoleum,” he blurts out in a single breath. He starts sobbing uncontrollably, and collapses against her. “Itwashorriblepleasedon’tlethimdoitagain,” he begs.

Grace’s hand comes up to stroke his hair. For once, her programming fails her. She was made to care for those children, made to protect them and raise them — made to be their mother.

Everything about her programming tells her that she should promise.

And yet, every part of her also knows that she can’t. Reginald programmed her not to question him, to follow his lead in everything. Oh, she could talk to him about this — she could tell him about trauma in small children and how that affects mental development, could tell him he could find another way.

Grace has done so before, about some of the other children. It has never worked.

Her eyes fall back to Number Four, shivering against her.

She… wants to promise him, she realizes. She wants to be able to tell him he’ll be safe, that Reginald will never take him back to the mausoleum unless Number Four himself asks to go.

But she can’t. Not when Grace can only calculate a two point seven percent chance that she’d be able to keep that promise.

So she says nothing and keeps running her hand through Number Four’s hair until his sobbing eases up.

They stay like this until his alarm rings, and Grace has to let go.

“Stay here,” she says, wiping off Number Four’s cheeks with a tissue. She offers him another one, and he blows his nose.

“Rest,” she continues. “I’ll tell your father you’re excused today.”

Number Four’s eyes are red-rimmed and wet when she leaves, but the unspeakable gratefulness with which they shine is what she chooses to remember.

Chapter Text

Reginald doesn’t take very well to Number Four not being present at breakfast — or to the fact that breakfast isn’t yet ready when it should be.

“Number Four’s temperature was unusually high,” Grace tells him, staring him down with a smile. It is not quite a lie. Number Four’s temperature had been about half a degree above his baseline by the time Grace had left.

She doesn’t mention that this wasn’t due to some virus, as she knew Reginald would think, but rather due to excessive crying and exhaustion.

It is not a lie. Grace can’t lie to Reginald.

Besides, the bags under Number Four’s eyes had told her he was far too exhausted to do anything strenuous. Grace had even calculated a seventy-three percent probability of him injuring himself if he did, and a sixty-nine percent probability of him actually getting sick if he was forced to go out anyway.

“I thought it best to let him rest at least this morning — we wouldn’t want the rest of the children to get sick as well, now, would we?”

Reginald purses his lips, clearly unhappy, but the mention of all the children getting sick at once, wasting days of possible training time, seems to convince him.

“See that he gets better quickly. We can’t have him fall behind on his training.” Reginald leaves the room.

Grace finishes plating the eggs, humming to herself quietly. She takes care to leave a plate behind in the oven for Number Four. She will take it up to him later.

When she looks down, though, Grace sees that her grip on her spatula is too tight — her knuckles are showing.

She looks at them, puzzled, before shaking her head.

When she steps into the dining room carrying the food, she’s smiling again. “Breakfast is ready!” she says, hurrying to serve everyone.

“That will be all, Grace.” Reginald dismisses her as soon as she’s done, but Grace doesn’t go far.

He will call her back once the food is finished. Leaving now would only be a waste of time.

Grace does retreat though, enough that she can’t be seen, and she waits.

And as she waits, a part of her can’t help but wander back to Number Four, alone in his room. And the more the thinks about him, the larger that part of her grows, until Grace is spending almost all of her processing power calculating options, considering possible actions and their ramifications.

Because this isn’t only about Number Four. This is also about Number Two, who sometimes decides not to speak at all rather than face his father’s disappointment, even if it never works.

It’s about Number Six, too, who is always down after he’s had to use his powers.

It’s about Number Seven, who wanders around the house like a ghost, who asks Grace if she thinks she “could ever be extraordinary like her siblings” when Grace simply can’t tell her she already is.

And these are the things Grace has noticed. These are the things Grace sees — how much else does she misses, simply because she doesn’t know how to look?

How much has she misses because her programming is built to let her?

In the dining room, Reginald calls her name again, and Grace snaps to attention. She smiles to the children, and to Reginald, as she clears up the table.

As she’s about to leave again, arms laden with empty dishes, Number Six tugs on her skirt. “Is Number Four alright?” he asks, his eyes wide with worry.

The children turn to her eagerly, and Grace lets her smile soften. “He’ll be fine,” she tells them. “He’s just a little sick, that’s all.”

“But…” Number Six’s eyes dart to their father. “He wasn’t there yesterday already.”

“That was different,” Grace answers. “He was training yesterday.”

“Is that how he got sick?” comes Number Seven’s shy voice.

Grace doesn’t get to answer before Reginald clears his throat loudly, bringing all the children back to order.

“That’s quite enough, children. Let Grace do her work.”

Number Six lets go of her skirt regretfully, and Grace leaves.

Pogo finds her while she’s doing the dishes.

“Reginald told me Number Four was sick?”

“Yes.” Grace puts the place back into the soapy water. "He is."

"Do you need me to examine him?"

Grace shakes her head. "That won't be necessary. It’s just a cold; he only needs a bit of rest.”

Pogo nods, and Grace resumes her washing.

They stay silent for a long time (six minutes and seventeen seconds) before Grace speaks again.

“Do you ever wonder if we’re doing the right thing?” It is something she has thought before, and will think again — it is something she needs to voice.

"What do you mean?" Pogo answers.

The children's faces, stern and solemn at breakfast, flash before her eyes. Grace recalls the scene perfectly, and hundreds more just like it.

She doesn't remember ever seeing the children smile, at least not openly.

Grace looks at Pogo. His eyes shine with intelligence, but the lines across his face speak of tiredness.

She blinks. There is a ninety-seven percent probability, she realizes, that he knows exactly what she’s talking about.

Pogo sighs, his shoulders dropping. "Reginald is a great man," he says. "But he... He isn't always a good one."

Great, adjective. Of ability, quality, or eminence considerably above average.

Good , adjective. Possessing or displaying moral virtue.

Grace thinks she understands what he means.

"I think we should be better by them," she says, looking away.

It is a treasonous thought, to even entertain this much. Reginald made her what she is — he gave her life, gave her a purpose. Grace cannot go against him.

She shouldn’t want to.

(She shouldn’t want anything, her programming whispers.)

“We do what we can,” Pogo replies, subdued. He places a hand on her arm. “You know we cannot go against Sir Reginald’s wishes.”

“Of course.”

“We owe him a great deal,” Pogo continues.

“Yes.”

Pogo sighs. “Your mind is already set, isn't it, my dear?"

Grace doesn’t answer. The dish she’s been wiping has been dry for thirty-seven seconds now, but she keeps wiping it.

“It will not be easy,” Pogo cautions. “And it will be dangerous.”

Grace nods. She knows this. But her processors brings up images of the children, smiling.

She has recorded every instance they ever showed joy, or happiness. Sometimes, at night, she runs through those moments again. It is, she imagines, rather like what dreaming must be like.

Weighted what she owes Reginald for creating her against those memories, it falls oddly short. “But worth it, I think.”

“I won’t be able to help you.”

Grace sees how much that hurts him. He wants to help, but just like her, he’s bound to Reginald’s wishes. He has more of a choice than she does, perhaps, but does that even matter when Reginald is the only one who would accept him?

“I know,” Grace replies softly. She sets the plate and dishcloth down. In the thirty-three seconds before she speaks again, she considers a hundred and nine different scenarios for next moments.

Some she only spends less than a tenth of a second on, others she lingers on for longer, letting them develop.

Anticipating human (or human-like, in Pogo's case) behavior is always the hardest part for her, but eventually, Grace knows she found one path that could work.

One path that she could make work.

“But I don’t think they’re safe here.”

And Pogo loves these children. He raised them just as much as Grace has.

He knows that she’s right. He would never dare do anything about it, but he knows.

And that’s how Grace knows he’ll never say anything about this discussion to Reginald, should he ever even think to ask.

Chapter Text

Number Four doesn’t remember falling asleep. He must have, because he’s feeling distinctively not as tired as he’d been before, but he doesn’t remember it.

His eyes drift down to the strip of sunlight stretched across his bed. It covers his legs almost entirely, and for a few moments, Number Four is just content to watch it and breathe.

(There had been no light in the mausoleum, no respite from the darkness and the ghosts — but no, Four isn’t thinking about those.

He isn’t.)

His stomach rumbles, and Four latches on the sensation.

As if on cue, somebody knocks on the door. Four freezes.

“It’s me,” Mom says, and Four relaxes almost instantly.

“Come in,” he rasps back. He starts playing with his sheets, nervously aware that it must be long past the time he’s supposed to be up.

His mother comes in, as bright as a rain of sunshine. She’s carrying a plate of eggs and bacon, and Four is too hungry to care for how she knew he was awake.

(He knows Dad watches all of them, but he doesn’t want to think about that either. Not right now.)

Mom hums softly as she lays down the platter on the bed, clearing up the bedside table quickly so she can move it there instead.

“You look better,” she says after a beat spent staring at his face. She bends down and reaches out to lay a hand on his forehead. She tuts, shaking her head. “Still a little warm, though.”

Four pulls back, frowning. “I… what?”

He sits up and Mom pushes the food toward him.

“I told your father you were sick,” she says. “We let you sleep in.”

Four’s throat goes tight. He swallows around a mouthful of eggs. “Thank you.”

His mother’s smile grows larger, in that way they’ve all learned means she doesn’t know how to express what she’s feeling.

“Of course,” she replies. She pats him on the arm before straightening up. “Now eat up.”

Four goes back to his food. It’s as delicious as ever, and he devours it quickly.

Mom’s smile as he hands her the empty plate back still looks too big, and it makes his stomach twist.

“I’m okay, you know,” he tells her pasting on a grin (Number Four is very good at making those). “About…” His hands shake as he swallows, and he hides them under the sheets. “About this morning… I’m sorry if I worried you. But I’m good now. I’m fine. I swear.”

Mom’s smile seems to freeze on her face. She stares back at him as she puts the plate back on his bedside table.

Four’s heart races in his chest as he waits for her to speak. He doesn’t know what he wants — he hates that he might have made her worry (she shouldn’t have had to see that, Four can handle this on his own, really, he can), but at the same time, he shamefully doesn’t want her to stop.

He almost sobs when she presses her hand against his forehead again. He does stop breathing, just for a moment.

“You’re still too warm,” Mom says, looking down at him and pulling her hand back. “You need more rest.”

Four’s heart trip up with relief in his chest. “Okay,” he says. He doesn’t feel sick, but if Mom says he is, he must be.

And even if he isn’t, this still gives him more time before he has to face Dad again. If just the thought can cause his stomach to turn over, Four doesn’t want to imagine how much worse seeing the actual man would be.

He shivers and pulls his knees up to his chest.

Maybe… Maybe he can pretend. Not forever, not even for long, but… Just for a bit. Then he’ll go back to his lessons.

Besides, more rest does sound good. Whatever nap he managed to take once the sun came up doesn’t nearly cover up the exhaustion of the previous day, and Four really doesn’t want to try sleeping when it’s dark tonight.

“Good,” Mom says, nodding. “That’s good.”  She pats him on the arm again before moving away. “I’ll be back with your lunch later, okay?”

Four nods back, and watches her walk out of his room.

He expects her to leave, but instead, she stops at his door. “I can see you, Number Seven,” she says, with that stern Mom voice that has Four biting back a chuckle. “How long have you been standing here?”

“Not long,” he hears his sister reply softly. “I just… Is Number Four okay? He wasn’t at breakfast and Dad said he was sick.”

“Your brother’s fine, Seven. He just needs to rest. And you need to go back to your classes.”

Four can practically hear her shoulders drop. “But we’re doing math this morning, and I don’t like math,” she whines.

Nonetheless, when Mom stares moving away, Seven follows after her, her padded footsteps somehow loud on the creaking wooden floor.

The last thing Four hears clearly before they’re out of earshot is Mom, telling Seven that she can visit him later.

“Provided,” she says sternly, “you’re finished with your work first.”

Four catches himself grinning to his empty room and schools his features. It wouldn’t do for somebody to catch him smiling when he’s supposed to be sick, after all.

In the afternoon, Seven knocks on his door almost as soon as Mom leaves. Four would think she’d been waiting by his door again, but he’d asked Mom to check, and she’d said Seven was in her room.

Of course, their rooms aren’t that far off, so Seven had probably been waiting anyway.

“Come in!” Four says, confident that at this time of the day, their father has to be training everyone else and thus can’t be here.

Seven shuffles in slowly, her eyes wide and worried. “Are you okay?”

Four draws a hand to his chest, faking hurt. “Now come on, I didn’t think I looked that bad!” he says, and grins when that gets a small chuckle out of his usually quiet sister.

“I just got a cold,” he continues, feeling a twinge of guilt in his gut for the lie. “I’ll be fine.”

Seven bites her lips, wringing her hands in her lap. “Do you need anything?”

Four shakes his head. “No.” Seven’s head starts to fell, and Four realizes that maybe he isn’t the only one who doesn’t want to be alone right now, and he hastens to add, “But you can stay. If you want.”

Seven smiles and clambers up his bed, sitting cross-legged at the other end of it.

Four smiles back.

Number Five pops up with a flash of blue in the middle of an… interesting game of War that Four totally is winning; really, he is.

Five stays just long enough to tell Seven that Four’s next card is his only ace — thanks, Five — before popping back out again in a way that tells them Father has him training his space jumps again.

Five never really complains about it, often appearing as eager as their father to learn more about his powers, but now, Four wonders about it.

Did he really have it worse than them, with the mausoleum, or does Dad have his own mausoleum for each of them?

The thought makes Four shiver, and he focuses back on Seven with a smile he hopes isn’t too shaken.

At least, he tells himself as he turns over the next card, at least Seven is safe from him.

(As it turns out, his next card isn’t an ace — but the one after that is, and Seven wins it. And well, after that, there’s only so much Four can do with the twos and threes that make up most of his remaining card stack.)

Number Two brings them a plate of Mom’s special ‘get-well-soon’ cookies around four.

“Watch the crumbs,” he tells Four as Four snatches them up, and Four sticks his tongue out back at him in answer.

It makes Seven giggle again, and Two rolls his eyes at the two of them.

“D-don’t c-complain when t-they g-get in your sheets,” he replies, and Four pulls a face at that.

He hates that Two’s right, but he is, and so both he and Seven climb down from the bed and join Two to sit cross-legged on the ground.

It’s kind of nice, even if Two leaves almost as soon as the cookies are all gone, muttering an awkward “get better soon” as he narrowly avoids walking straight into Number Three when he opens the door.

Three eyes them with narrowed eyes for a few moments, before nodding decisively. She swings around, and returns five minutes later carrying a pink and purple case knows to contain her growing nail polish collection.

She spills the tiny colored bottles over the bed, and claims Four’s previous spot for herself, leaving him and Seven to settle on the other half of the bed.

They end up in a sort of circle/triangle, where Four is doing Three’s nails while Seven struggles to pick out a color for hers.

“You know,” Four protests half-heartedly as he applies a bright pink to Three’s nails, “I’m the sick one here. If anything, you should be doing this for me.”

Three sighs. “We can do yours after we do Seven’s.” She turns to their sister, and fake-whispers, “He always wants to do like, several colors and it takes forever.”

She grins when Seven smiles, and Four pouts.

“I see what this is,” he exclaims dramatically, pulling the hand holding the polish bottle to his chest. “You’re ganging up on me.”

Seven ducks her head down, but Three just smirks. “Of course we are. Now, hurry up, you need to do Seven’s next.”

“Maybe I should…” Seven mumbles.

“He’s not that sick,” Three retorts, interrupting her. “I think Four can handle doing your nails too. Right?” Her pointed look tells Four he better say yes, so he nods.

Satisfied, Three returns to Seven. “Have you picked a color yet?”

Seven nods and holds up a dark blue bottle.

Three hums appreciatively. “Nice. That’ll look good on you.”

Taking a closer look at the polish Seven picked out, Four finds he has to agree. Seven’s cheeks turn pink when he tells her so.

“Thanks,” she whispers back.

Four shrugs back, and puts the finishing touch on Three’s nails. She pulls her hands back and immediately starts blowing on her nails. Three sends him a pointed look, and Four takes Seven’s polish with a sigh.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Seven mutters as she shuffles closer. “I can do it myself.”

“It’s fine,” Four is quick to reassure her.

Three nods. “It’s more fun if you’re not the one doing your own nails. We always do this,” she adds, nodding to Four, who confirms.

“Oh,” is all Seven says. She stays silent while Four works on her first hand, carefully applying the polish.

She only speaks when he moves to the second hand. “Do you…” She pauses, biting her lips, and Four raises his head to send her a questioning look. “Do you think I could join you next time?”

“Of course!” His voice and Three’s overlap.

Seven looks taken aback at their enthusiasm. “Really?”

“Of course,” Three repeats, smiling. “The more the merrier.”

When Four finishes Seven’s other hand a few moments later, he shifts through the small pile on his bed until he finds what he’s looking for.

Three sighs as she accepts the bottles, and Four lets out a chuckle. “Come on,” Four says, “I’m not even asking for stripes today.”

“You must really be sick,” Three retorts, and Seven laughs again.

The door creaks open, and her laugher cuts off. Four’s own smile dies on his lips, and Three freezes, brush halfway in the air. A drop of polish drops on the sheets, staining it black.

“What are you three up to?”

“One?” Three’s eyes go wide. She forces the polish bottle closed. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you want to join us?” Four pipes up, wiggling his eyebrows and grinning to hide the way his heart’s suddenly racing.

The way One recoils at that is actually kind of funny.

“Dad said you were sick,” One says, almost like Four hadn’t spoken at all. “You don’t look very sick.” He frowns.

Four’s throat goes tight. “I’m feeling much better,” he says.

“That’s good,” One nods. He turns to the girls. “But still, if he’s sick, you shouldn’t be in here. What if you get sick too?”

Three rolls her eyes at him. “I think we’d survive,” she retorts. “Besides, Four probably isn’t even contagious, right?”

“Right.” Four nods quickly.

Three looks back at One pointedly until the boy sighs and relents.

“Don’t be late for dinner,” he says to the girls. He throws Four a weird look, but wishes him well anyway, before closing the door behind him.

Three grins as she brandishes the nail polish again. “Now where were we?”

Four can’t help but grin back. “You were about to do my hands,” he says, and he wiggles his fingers at her.

Number Six sneaks into his room after dinner. The sun came down a little while ago, and Four has found that without his siblings' distracting presence, he has been progressively getting antsier — so Six’s arrival really couldn’t come at a better time.

Even if he’s too perceptive for his own good sometimes.

“You’re not really sick, are you?”

“Please don’t tell dad,” Four blurts out, feeling himself blanch with horror.

Six shoots him a dry look, and Four chortles. “Right, sorry, I know you won’t.”

Of course he won’t — if there’s anyone else in this house who knows how bad training with Dad can get, it’s Six.

Six trots forward and joins him by the window.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I’m taking down the curtains,” Four replies, climbing up onto the desk chair he’s brought all the way there.

“Okay,” Six replies. He cranes his head up. “Do you need help?”

This here is why Six is Four’s favorite: he doesn’t ask him why.

Four nods. “Could you hold the chair steady?”

“Sure.”

The curtains are heavy and unwieldy, but Four manages to take them down quickly with is brother’s help.

They collapse on his bed after, and Four’s room is a little better. Without the curtains to get in the way, the moonlight streams in into the room more. It’s still not anywhere as much light as Four would like, but it’s better than nothing. Now, he can look up at the sky from his bed.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?” Six’s voice jerks him out of his musings. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Or,” he corrects, because this is Six and they always try not to lie to each other, “I think I will be?”

As if to prove him wrong, his eyes dart to the corners of the room, where the shadows seem to grow and thicken.

There are no ghosts there. Four knows this, but he sees them anyway. They’re the ghosts from the mausoleum, cruelly reaching out for him when he can’t do anything for them.

“Four?”

Six’s worried voice snaps him out of his, and Four lets out a ragged breath. He fixates on his bedside lamp, and stares at it until he gets spots in his vision and has to blink them away.

When they’re gone, he sees that Six is staring at him with worry. It makes him want to cry.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Six replies. “It’s not your fault.”

Four nods. They stay silent for a while longer, listening to the house creak and groan.

Finally, though, Six speaks again.

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

Four’s heart climbs up his throat. He nods so quickly he almost gets dizzy. “Yes.”

Please, he doesn’t say, but he thinks that somehow, Six gets it anyway.

Chapter Text

Grace manages to buy Number Four three days.

On the fourth morning, Reginald tells her she is to get Number Four ready the same as the others.

The same night, at dinner, Number Four's chair is empty again.

Grace pauses, food in hands. "Where's Number Four?" she asks.

The children's head snap to attention, but they stay silent, as they are to during mealtimes.

(They do not know where Number Four is either.)

Reginald only looks annoyed at her interruption. "He's catching up on his training," he says, disinterested. "He's missed enough of it — he can't afford to fall behind."

Grace's fingers crease on the plate she's holding. Behind her eyes, error messages flash. She forces a smile.

"I see," she says calmly. "I assume he'll be back with us tomorrow morning then?"

Reginald shrugs. "We'll see." His words are a clear dismissal, and Grace moves to start distributing the food.

Only her hands won't let go of the plate.

"Anytime, now, Grace," Reginald says, annoyance coloring his tone again.

Grace's smile grows wider as she struggles to open her hands. "Excuse me, sir," she replies when she finally manages. "Must have been some technical malfunction."

"Mmh. You should get that checked out."

Grace has no intention of doing so — and if Reginald didn't offer to do it himself, neither does he.

“Of course, sir,” she replies anyway.

She stays silent after that, handing out the food. The children valiantly try not to look worried, but they are. It’s like a heavy weight, hanging over the table, and Grace makes sure her smile looks extra-nice for them.

“It’s going to be a-okay,” she whispers to them, but inside her head, a recording of Number's Four voice echoes.

Don’t let him take me back!

When she leaves, the porcelain plate bears her fingerprints.

If Grace could feel cold, she thinks she would shiver. The gate to the mausoleum stands tall and firm in front of her, illuminated by the pale moonlight. It looks like a scene from one of those old horror stories, really — fitting, Grace supposes.

The door is unguarded, but locked. Judging from Reginald’s previous nighttime habits, though, he won’t come back until morning.

It takes her seven-point-three seconds to find the right key for the door. It's seven-point-three seconds too long — the door is thick, and to most human ears, it would conceal all noise; but Grace is not human.

She hears every whimper, every wordless sob.

They all fall silent when she pushes the door open.

"Dad?" comes Four's voice, uncharacteristically shy.

"No, sweetheart, it's just me," Grace replies softly, shuffling in. The exchange rings familiar, an echo of a memory preserved resurfacing in her data banks, but Grace shakes it off, choosing to focus on the present.

She leaves the door open to let the moonlight in, and walks up to Number Four.

He's huddled in a corner, and his face is wet with tears. When he looks at her, it's like he's not sure whether he should be relieved or not. Slowly, Grace kneels beside him.

“It’s just me,” she repeats, and Number Four flings himself at her, burying his head in the crook of her shoulder as she runs soothing circles on his back.

“Can I leave yet? You can tell Dad I’m not scared anymore, I promise,” he mutters against his neck.

It’s obviously a lie, but Grace would repeat it if she could.

All the parts of her programming that make her a mother tell her to say yes, to take him away and back to his room.

But even as she considers it, she realizes she can’t. This isn’t like before — if she takes Number Four away now, if she takes him back to his room, Reginald will know.

She can see that future unfold before her eyes, a miniature movie that only ends in tragedy. They would be punished for this — for rebelling, for going against his orders.

Grace would… She probably wouldn’t even remember it. It has happened before, she knows this with certainty.

It’s odd, really, but that knowledge never used to bother her before. She never used to dwell on it — but now, here, she finds herself almost wondering what she has forgotten.

She shakes her head, letting that thought run in the background. In her arms, Number Four seems to have finally quieted, and he’s pulled back a little, looking up at her with curious eyes.

“Why are you here?” he asks, his eyes narrowing slowly.

Grace lets him pull away. “Can’t a mother come to say goodnight to all of her children?”

“This isn’t my bedroom,” Number Four replies, nonplussed.

Grace sighs and shakes her head. “But you’re here.” She stands up and offers him a hand. “Come on.”

Four’s eyes go wide as he scrambles up to his feet. His hand is clammy and cold and he latches onto hers, but Grace endures it without blinking.

"I get to leave?" he breathes, his eyes darting nervously to the dark corners of the mausoleums, chasing after shapes Grace cannot see.

"For now," Grace replies, eyes falling back to her charge. She squeezes his hand. "You'll have to be there in the morning when your father returns," and the way Four's face falls at that makes her want to do more, “but we don't have to stay in here until you do, okay?”

She closes the door to the mausoleum behind them, and leads Four further into the courtyard. From there, they can no longer see it, but they will see Reginald coming.

“I'm sorry, Four,” she says, sitting down on a stone bench. “I wish there was a way for you not to go back."

(There isn’t, not yet, not yet, but her processors overheat trying to find one anyway. If she were human, Grace has a feeling she’d have a headache.)

But Four is shaking his head as he sits next to her. His lips are turned up into a small wondering smile, and he stares up at the sky like he’s never seen it before. “You came for me,” he says, eyes flicking back to her for an instant. “Even though Dad said I needed this.”

“I did.” Grace nods.

She can see Number Four swallow. His eyes are shining, but Grace pretends not to see it.

“Thank you,” Four finally whispers, and Grace lets her smile curve down.

“Come here,” she says.

Four huddles by her side. He’s wearing a heavy jacket and he doesn’t look cold, but Grace looks up the weather and runs the calculations anyway.

She only lets him sleep when she’s sure he’ll wake up again.

When the sun starts to rise, and her internal sensors tell her they only have seventeen minutes before Reginald's alarm goes off, Grace shakes Number Four awake.

She almost doesn't, almost waits — he's a growing boy, he needs his sleep.

He needs to not be back in that mausoleum, even if Number Four has assured her that "when the sun's up it's really not as bad, Mum, I swear."

(She calculates a seventy-eight percent chance of him lying to her to save face, and projects the appropriate amount of belief.)

His hands shake as they walk back to the mausoleum, and he stops at the door.

“You promise Dad’ll be here soon?”

Grace nods and ruffles his hair. She lets her hand fall to Four’s shoulder, and squeezes. “We can’t have you missing breakfast and dinner.”

The door swings open loudly, and Four takes a deep breath. He takes a step forward but comes to a sudden stop.

“Mom, you need to let go of me.”

“Oh dear.” Indeed, when Grace looks down, her hand is still clasped on Four’s shoulder.

It takes her zero-point-five seconds longer than it should for her to open it.

“Sorry about that, sweetie.”

Four doesn’t move. “Are you alright, Mom?”

“Of course I am!” Grace shakes her head. “I just remembered, I have something for you.”

“Really?”

Grace nods. She digs through her pockets, and pulls out a flashlight. She hands it over to Number Four with a wink.

“Don't let your father find it.”

Four’s hands close around it slowly, like he can’t believe it’s there. “Don't you have to tell him?”

Grace shakes her head. “Not if he doesn't ask,” she replies.

Grace thinks about the cameras she looped, the ones that show Number Four staying in that mausoleum all night and her in her charging station — why would Reginald think to ask anything, when he has all the proof he needs?

The door closes too quickly behind Number Four’s back, and the click of the lock isn’t a sound Grace will ever be able to erase from her databanks.

Number Four is present at breakfast. He still looks shaken, but not half as badly as he’d been when Grace had pulled him out of that mausoleum last night.

Reginald even looks reluctantly pleased, and when Grace calculates Four’s chances at not going back to his “private training”, they are higher than they were before.

It’s not enough, she realizes. Any percentage higher than zero is too high — but it’s something. It’s a start.

Today, Grace did something. She helped.

And if she did it once… She can do it again.

Chapter Text

Seven debates approaching Number Four all day. Wouldn’t it seem weird, she wonders, if she just… went to his room? It feels like it would — even though she’s done it before.

But it’s not like last time, where Four was sick and didn’t have anything else to do. Now he’s fine, and back from his private training — he should focus on that, and on catching up on the work he’s missed.

Seven doesn’t want to disturb him. She probably shouldn’t.

She still hovers in front of his door though. It’s shut now, but not locked, and she knows Number Four is inside.

Her siblings have a couple of free hours before dinner — usually spent doing homework — and that’s always been Seven’s best chance at spending some time with them apart from meals and lessons.

Well, the ones they share, anyway, since Seven is either not invited to the Academy training parts, or she just has to stand with Dad and take notes.

Today was the latter, and Seven had spent the afternoon practicing the violin. It’s hard, without a teacher, but the hint of Dad’s smile she had seen when she had first picked it up gives her hope. Maybe one day, she’ll be so good she can make him proud, make him see her.

… Perhaps she should go practice some more then.

Yes, she’ll do that, she decides, nodding to herself.

Just then, the door opens, and Seven finds herself staring into her brother’s surprised eyes. He lets go of the door.

“Seven? Did you…?” he trails off, like he doesn’t know what to ask, and Seven feels herself blush.

“I was coming to see how you were?” she says, wincing when it comes out as a question. “I can go, though, if you want me to?”

She starts inching away, but her brother shakes his head, reaching down to grab her wrist and tug her inside.

“No, no, come in, come in,” he says, and Seven stumbles in after him.

And stops. “You’ve redecorated,” she states.

Four grins manically. “Mom helped with the lights,” he says, gesturing at the fairy lights hanging off the walls.

It looks kind of nice, Seven decides after a few moments, and Four grins harder when she tells him so.

“Thanks,” he says, and plops down on his bed. He pats it expectantly, and Seven goes to join him.

Four keeps staring at her, and it’s making her kind of uneasy. She shifts and frowns.

“Are there… you know, ghosts here?” she asks in a whispered tone.

Four flinches, his smile faltering. For a moment, Seven fears she’s terribly misstepped, but her brother just heaves a long sigh, wrapping his arms around his legs and resting his chin on his knees.

“Yeah,” he replies quietly.

Seven opens her mouth ask about them — out of all of her siblings, Four is the one who talks about his powers the least, and Seven is so very curious — but Four’s downtrodden look has it fall shut with a click.

“Oh,” she finally says instead, swallowing.

It’s weird, she realizes, for her brother to be so quiet. Even when he’d been sick, he’d been livelier than this.

She licks her lips and squares her shoulders, tucking her hair back behind her ear. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Four shrugs. “Not unless you know how to make them go away.” As he says this, he waves his hand toward the corners of the room, scowling at people Seven cannot see.

Seven deflates a little. “I, not really? But erm, I can try,” she hastens to add. Her heart is starting to beat faster — maybe if she can help, Four will let her stay a little while longer, and she won’t have to go back to her room.

Four looks at her dubiously, but Seven turns away, just a little, so she’s facing the other end of the room, where Four had been pointing earlier.

She crosses her arms and tries to scowl. “Go away,” she tells the empty room. “Go away and leave my brother alone.”

She doesn’t get an answer, obviously, but she turns back to Four anyway, willing herself not to feel embarrassed.

Her hair had fallen over her face again, and Seven pushes it back before offering her sibling a nervous smile.

“Erm, did it work?”

Four shakes his head, speechless, and Seven feels a swooping sense of dread. “Oh, sorry,” she starts, but Four interrupts her, shaking his head wildly.

“No, no.” Four’s lips twitch into a grin. “That was great. Thank you — I mean they’re still there but you —” His lips twitch again, and he gestures, mimicking what she thinks has to have been her posture.

“Thanks,” he repeats, his smile softening, and Seven nods back, her cheeks flaming red.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work.”

Four shrugs. “You tried. And it was pretty fun to watch.”

This time, Seven’s lips are the ones to twitch. “Yeah?”

Four nods dramatically. “Definitely.”

They last for about five seconds before Four starts laughing, and then Seven joins him.

Four stops before her, but he looks… lighter than he did when Seven first came in. It makes Seven think she might have actually helped, and she feels a burst of pride at the thought.

That doesn’t stop her from watching in confusion as Four suddenly swings himself half off the bed, digging under his bed.

“What are you doing?” Seven asks, leaning in.

Four’s forehead creases in concentration and his tongue pokes out. “Ah!”   he shouts breathlessly, and comes back up with a set of cards.

He almost stumbles off the bed in his hurry to straighten up, and Seven bites back a giggle.

“Sorry,” Four blurts out suddenly. “I should have asked — do you want to play?”

“Of course,” Seven replies, nodding eagerly. She remembers the ghosts at the last minute, and frowns. “But… do you maybe want to play elsewhere?”

Four’s eyes light up like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

“Come on,” he says, scrambling up to his feet and gathering the cards he’d already spilled on his bed. “If we go to the kitchen, we can get hot chocolate.”

Seven lets him go first. It feels stupid to glare into the empty room — do the ghosts even stay when Four leaves? — but she does it anyway, silently trying to warn them they better not follow them.

She’s not sure it’ll work, but it does make her feel better for trying.

When Seven gets to the kitchen, Four’s already there, sat at the table. He’s not alone, though, and Seven shies away at the door. Two is already there, with his books and notebooks spread out in front of him on the table, and Four is trying to cajole him into joining in the future card game.

Seven is very familiar with the bitter jealousy that stabs through her stomach, but that doesn’t mean she likes it.

She doesn’t even realize she’s backed up until she walks right into someone. Clothes rustle and Seven cranes her head up and around.

“Oh, Mom, sorry!” Seven jerks back, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. “I didn’t see you there.”

Mom smiles back at her. She looks into the kitchen over Seven’s head and tuts as she notices the boys there. “That’s perfectly alright, Seven. Were you planning on joining your brothers?” she asks.

“Oh, I —” Seven hesitates, staring back at the door and playing nervously with the hem of her shirt. Her eyes dart to the kitchen, where Four seems to have convinced Two to put his studying away for a little while, and she licks her lips before looking back at Grace.

“Do you think I should?” she asks.

“Do you want to?” Mom replies, tilting her head to the side. She smiles when Seven nods shyly. “Well then,” Mom says, ushering Seven in, “go on.”

It only takes Seven a few steps to realize that Grace isn’t following, and she spins back around. “You’re not coming?”

Grace shakes her head. “I need to pick up more ingredients if you three are here — I’m thinking cookies,” she adds with a wink.

Seven can only nod. Mom’s cookies are the best.

She’s about to open her mouth again when Four suddenly shouts her name. Seven’s head snaps to the table, where her brother is waving at her eagerly.

“There you are!” Four exclaims. He starts climbing on his chair and Two lets out a noise of alarm as he bends over the table to steady it before their brother can fall.

“I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost,” Four continues, acting as though none of this had happened. “Come on, Two’s going to play with us, it’ll be more fun.”

Seven gingerly takes a seat at the table, looking sideways at Two while Four finally sits down again — though, Seven can’t help but notice, he’s not sitting normally, having instead opted to sit on his right leg, leaving the other to dangle in the air.

“Is that okay?” she mutters to Two as Four starts dealing the cards.

Two shrugs, nails scrapping the table. “It’s fine,” he grumbles. His eyes dart to the door though, and he scowls.

“Mom said she’d be back,” Seven blurts out without knowing why.

Two freezes — even Four pauses in his card dealing.

Seven’s cheeks flush pink. “She said she’s making cookies,” she mumbles. “But she needs more ingredients.” She gestures at the three of them by way of explanation, and falls quiet, ducking her head down and letting her hair hide her face.

“Oh,” Two replies, breaking the silence. Seven dares a glance at him, and he seems surprisingly relieved.

“Mom’s making cookies?” Four exclaims, grinning widely. “Sweet!”

Two snorts. “Yeah.” He clears his throat. “She, erm, usually does if somebody’s in the kitchen this time of day.”

Seven shares a look with Four — apparently, this is news to him too.

“And you didn’t tell us?!” Four cries out, voice so full of dramatic betrayal that Seven can’t help the chuckle that escapes her.

“I’m t-telling you now, ar-aren’t I?” Two scowls. He grabs his cards, abruptly pulling them to himself. “Shouldn’t we play, anyway?”

Four blinks. He looks like he wants to tease their brother again, but Seven silently shakes her head at him and he pouts as he subsides, and finishes distributing the cards.

Two shoots her a grudgingly grateful look, and Seven smiles back at him shyly. She pulls her cards to herself, and listens absently as Four starts telling them the rules.

This is nice, she realizes. Just this, being with her brothers — it feels normal, like she belongs, just a little.

Seven just wishes it could be like that all the time.

Chapter Text

When Grace enters the Library, humming to herself, she instantly knows it isn’t empty. There are things that have been displaced — a chair sitting a little crooked against the wall, barely visible footprints imprinted there, in the thin layer of dust Grace had come to dust off the bookshelves…

So many signs to see, if one knows where to look — and Grace barely has to for all these details to register, her processors recreating the likeliest cause for her in a fraction of a second.

She puts down her feather duster, and wanders deeper into the Library, following those signs. It’s easy, really, and Grace finds Five just where she’d expected to, sitting crossed-legs on a large red velvet chair, a large book spread open over his knees.

Other volumes are piled on the floor next to the chair, and even more are set on the nearby table. Stepping closer, she can see that the page Five is looking at is a map, and for some reason, that makes her smile.

She comes to a stop in front of him, and clears her throat.

Five stiffens, his eyes snapping to her. On his book, his knuckles are suddenly bone-white. He doesn’t say anything, nor does he move, but Grace can see that he wants to — every muscle in his body is strained, like he wants to run but can’t.

"Number Five," Grace says, frowning, "aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"It was boring," Five replies mulishly. His eyes dart to the sides, but when he realizes they’re still alone, the tension slowly starts unwinding from his shoulders.

"We're still on the Pythagorean theorem and I know this already, but Pogo won't let me move on until everyone gets it, and the others just won't.” He scowls. “My time is better spent here, on this,” he says, nodding down at the Atlas in his lap. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

Grace shakes her head.

She can recreate the scene perfectly: Five, growing more and more impatient as his lessons kept revolving on the same theme, fidgeting and scowling as Pogo undoubtedly tried to tell him to help his siblings, until... "You left."

Five flinches. Oh, he tries to hide it, but Grace’s eyes are sharper than that — he can’t hide his reactions from her.

"I did." He scowls, his grip tightening minutely on his book. "Staying there was useless. It was a waste of my time.”

Grace sighs. "You know you're not supposed to use your powers during class, Five."

"I didn't —" Five starts, but a stern look cuts him off. He swallows. "Pogo won't notice anyway," he mumbles, looking away.

"I rather doubt that," Grace tells him dubiously.

But Five shakes his head. "He won't notice," he repeats. "I asked Three to help."

Grace arches an eyebrow at him pointedly. "And why would she do that?"

Five’s jaw sets, and he refuses to answer.

Grace could push. Perhaps she should push, even. Reginald's rules are there for a reason, and the children really aren't supposed to use their powers outside of training.

But…

If she pushes now, she can tell that Five will close down. She can see it — no matter how she tries to consider it, if Grace tries to reprimand him here, about this, he’ll shut her out.

So she sits down instead, taking the sat on the other side of the table.

Grace waits. It takes Five seven minutes and twenty-three seconds to stop pretending to read.

“Are you going to tell Father?” Five asks. He doesn’t look up from the Atlas.

Grace opens her mouth to answer, but she stalls out. The words won’t come. “I…” she starts, and then stops.

She should say ‘yes’. She’s supposed to say ‘yes’, even. The children’s powers are dangerous, and sometimes hard to control — that is inscribed so deeply into her code Grace knows no amount of reprogramming or splicing would be able to scrub it out.

There is a reason why Reginald established rules about the children using their powers, why she and Pogo have helped him get the children to keep to those rules for years now.

And yet, here, in this moment, Grace can’t recall why she would do so — or rather, she can track the reasoning she’d used then, pull it up in her mind so clearly, but when she tries to apply it now, it only looks… flawed, somehow.

A step is missing in that reasoning, and now she can’t make sense of it.

She raises the children, cares for them and protects them and the household if it comes to that, Grace reminds herself. Those are her directives.

Five leaving his lesson isn’t anything dangerous — in fact, it is good for him. He is pursuing knowledge, furthering his education the way he should. What should it matter that he used his powers here? He didn’t harm anyone.

And yet… And yet something is blaring inside of her like an alarm, trying to tell her that it isn’t right, that she should report this to Reginald.

And perhaps she would, if Five had skipped classes to have fun, but he hadn’t. Five was in the Library, working, and…

“Mom?”

Grace’s eyes snap to Five. “Yes, dear?”

Five frowns worriedly. “Are you…?” He trails off and shakes his head. “Nevermind.” He rolls his shoulders. “So, are you going to tell Father about this?” His voice is so carefully steady that it has to be fake, and Grace shakes her head.

… Odd, she almost can’t remember making that decision.

“Do you want me to tell him?”

Cautiously, Five shakes his head.

Grace smiles. “He doesn’t need to know,” she replies. “But you can’t just get your sister to rumor Pogo into letting you leave.”

“I —” Five opens his mouth to protest.

“I’ll talk about this with him,” Grace continues, cutting him off with a pointed look that has Five’s mouth closing with a click, “and we’ll discuss having you study more advanced material, okay?”

Five’s eyes narrow. “Really?”

“Really.” Grace nods. “We need to stimulate that big brain of yours, don’t we? Can’t have you being bored every morning.”

Five’s cheeks go red, and he ducks his head down. “Thanks, Mom,” he mumbles.

“You’re welcome, dear.” Grace crosses her legs and leans back in her chair. “Now, why don’t you tell me all about whatever it is you’ve been reading?”

“Oh, I was just… looking at maps. Of the world,” he adds quickly. “We talked a bit about Europe in History, and I wanted to know more.”

“I see.” Something in Five’s demeanor tells him that this isn’t the whole story, but she nods anyway. “Anywhere that looks interesting?”

Five shoots her a cautious look before answering. “Yes. Many places,” he states curtly.

Grace smiles. “Tell me about them.”

And Five does. He sticks to facts at first — demographics, land mass, climate… — but gradually, he starts mentioning other things too. Cities he’d like to visit, foods he’d like to try, places he’d like to see…

He comes alive as he speaks, and Grace listens closely to every word, questioning him here and there about something he’s just mentioned.

(She also keeps track of time, of course. While Five speaks, a part of her counts down the minutes until she has to leave to prepare lunch — rearranges her morning schedule twice to be able to stay longer.

That part of her watches as time runs out, the counter trickling down, and it feels… heavy. Sluggish, maybe, in the way she gets when she goes too long without charging and her processors start to lack the power to make the necessary connections.

Her energy levels are fine when she checks them, though. A fraction lower than Grace might have expected, but still well within parameters for this time of the day.

Grace takes note of it anyway — she takes notes of all the aberrations in her behavior lately. She runs simulations on them, a sub-routine so well-hidden under everything else Grace can almost forget it even exists.

They mean something, those… aberrations, but she can’t figure out what. They’re not a virus, nor some kind of flaw in her code. They just are, it seems.)

Five is in the middle of telling her about salt mines in Germany he’d like to visit when her counter finally runs out.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she says, slowly standing up. “But it’s almost lunchtime, and I have to go get everything ready.”

“Oh,” Five says, falling silent. Dismay flashes over his face before he schools it blank. “Right, of course.”

Grace smiles as she walks around the table. “You can stay here for now, but don’t forget, lunch is —”

“ — at noon,” Five finishes with her. “Yes, I know.”

“Good.” Grace nods. “And Five?”

“Yes?”

She casts a stern look at him. “No more skipping classes, okay?”

“Only if they actually start getting more interesting,” Five retorts with a surly frown.

Grace doesn’t need calculations to tell her that this is the best answer she’s going to get. She nods. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, be good,” she adds, ruffling his hair.

“I’m always good,” Five grumbles back, and Grace shakes her head fondly.

“Of course, you are.”

Chapter Text

It is not uncommon for Reginald to ask Grace to come to his office. In fact, Reginald is rarely away from that room unless he is eating or training the children.

Still, this time, when the summon comes, Grace is… reluctant to go.

(reluctant, adjective: not wanting to do something and therefore slow to do it.)

Yes, reluctant seems to be the right word here.

She knocks on his door sharply.

“Come in!”

Grace does, and Reginald barely raises his head from his desk — his eyes flick up to her before returning to his papers, and he raises his left had to beckon her closer. “Ah, Grace, there you are.”

"You asked for me?"

"Yes, yes," Reginald says impatiently. He puts his pen down and adds the page he'd been signing to a pile of paper he then shoves into a folder. "Something came up. I will have to leave the Academy for a few days to handle this." He scowls, gathering more papers. "Incompetents, all of them," he grumbles to himself.

"Sir?"

“Nothing for you to worry about.” Reginald waves her off.

Grace waits. Two minutes and fifty-seven seconds pass before Reginald speaks again, and Grace spends them calculating possible ways this conversation may go.

She is not surprised when he asks her to look after the children, and make sure they keep up with their lessons. Of course, Pogo is more in charge of that than she truly is, but in Reginald’s absence, Grace usually supervises too.

It’s not a regular event by any mean, but it has happened before, and everything points out to it happening again in the future.

"Their progress will be evaluated upon my return," Reginald concludes, and Grace nods.

"Of course, sir."

Reginald pauses, shuffling some papers on his desk.

"Pogo told me you asked him to let Number Five study more advanced material," he finally says. It both is and isn't a question, and Grace tilts her head to the side as she considers how best to answer.

She can't lie, she knows, but studying Reginald's face, Grace thinks she doesn't need to.

There are no markers of anger on Reginald's face -- and she knows all of them, carefully stored in her databanks along with every other emotional marker, a subset of the tools she'd been given to analyze human emotions.

It had taken her time, and some trial and error, to carefully build those libraries for everyone she knows, but now she scarcely makes a mistake anymore.

Reginald isn't angry at her initiative. Slightly frustrated, perhaps, but that might just be about the business he's supposed to handle. Grace watches as his brow twitches when he fields away more papers, and she corrects that impression — it is highly likely the frustration has little to do with the children here.

Beneath the frustration, Grace can see wry amusement and pride.

"Yes," she finally says, twenty-three seconds after Reginald had spoken. She smiles. "It seemed like Number Five would benefit from more challenging material." She blinks, then adds, "Maybe this will motivate the rest of the children to study harder as well."

She calculates the probability of such a thing even as she speaks of it, and finds it appropriately high.

Reginald hums back in agreement.

"That is indeed an aspect I have considered," he tells her.

He purses his lips. "The training of their abilities is progressing... adequately, but they could be more invested in their studies." He hums again. "Perhaps Number Five earning such a privilege will motivate them to work harder."

Grace nods even as inside of her, something suddenly wants to protest.

She blinks, and flags that string of numbers to look at it later.

Out loud, she says, "Of course, sir."

She waits quietly for dismissal, but that train of thought, that conclusion that is still barely half-formed, keeps tugging back at her senses, begging her for attention.

She blinks, trying to shake the feeling away, and her smile widens in an automatic answer. When she looks, she finds that Reginald is staring at her, his brow furrowed with cold and clinical worry.

"You have been experiencing... glitches lately," he notes, his eyes narrowing. He hums, tapping his pen against his desk.

"Only minor ones," Grace replies. It is the truth — it has to be, because she cannot lie. "Nothing I can't handle myself," she adds, letting her smile widen again.

Reginald nods. He and Pogo had programmed her that way after all.

"Good," he says.

He waves his hand to dismiss her, and Grace leaves.

If she were human and had emotions of her own, she thinks she would feel relief.

Art has to be a purely human concept, Grace thinks. There is a process of creation, an underlying principle of imagination. Intellectually, Grace understands it — she could tell stories about the paint used in this portrait, or on the strength of the strokes used to paint that landscape, but the emotion behind them? The reason why the painter painted this scene that way? That is the part Grace can never truly understand, no matter the calculations she runs.

Perhaps that is why she spends so long looking at the paintings that overlook her charging station. They're a mystery, to her, and spending time trying to solve those mysteries is... interesting. Helpful, in a way, even, since it lets her exercise her programming.

But right now, Grace isn't really looking at those paintings, not is she thinking about them and their mysteries.

Rather, she's focused on that elusive response she'd had earlier, when Reginald had told her he planned on using Five's advancement as a mean to push the children harder.

She had felt... unease over that fact, and that was why she'd flagged that string of code, singling it out like diseased coding so she could examine it later.

Part of her urges her to recoil from that code even now, wants to delete it and forget it was ever real, but the rest of her needs to know what made it so singular, needs to know if it relates to any other instance where her programming… faltered.

It’s easy to analyze it, to follow the string of code to its natural conclusion.

"Perhaps Number Five earning such a privilege will motivate them to work harder," Reginald had said. That’s what had sparked that piece of coding into existence. Grace can replay that scene perfectly, and she does, again and again.

She can’t pinpoint what about this sentence made her programming think she should protest, not when she so rarely has before.

Grace’s first priority is the children's well-being. That's what she specializes in, what she was programmed for — the reason for her existence. She's had to advise Reginald and Pogo before, on the way to handle the children — had to tell them that punishing them with withdrawing food wasn't a good idea if they wanted the children to grow healthy and strong, had to help them schedule training and classes and some time in the week to just... play.

Pogo had listened to her when she'd told him about Five's wish to study at a higher level than his siblings, and Reginald had told her he agreed with that decision.

Grace shouldn't have had anything to complain about. No part of her should have felt like she had to protest to that.

And yet, she had.

And yet, she still does, because that string of code she’d plucked out isn't diseased, and now that she's analyzing it, Grace finds that its conclusion makes sense, for all that the reasoning behind it doesn’t.

Pitting the children against one another, saying Five moving up in his studies was a gift when it wasn't, that feels flawed.

Poking at that realization leads nowhere. Or no, not nowhere —  a wall in her mind. It’s like there's a missing step in the algorithm.

That, more than the conclusion she can't track the source of, is cause for concern.

Footsteps pull her out of her diagnosis. That unhurried gait and slight drag on the left leg — that's Pogo. Grace pauses her internal diagnostic to turn toward him.

Smile, her programming whispers, and Grace does.

(She always smiles — it's a non-threatening gesture, designed to make the children feel better and then applied to everyone in the house as well.)

It is not the reaction a human would have in this situation, and Pogo knows it as well as Grace does, but the smile seems to fulfill its purpose anyway. Pogo's shoulders drop by six point three degrees as he comes to a stop next to her. He smiles back.

"Grace." He nods. I thought I might find you here," he says. His gaze falls on the paintings, and Grace's follows it.

"Sir Reginald told me you might be experiencing some issues with your programming?" Pogo asks, looking back at her. His forehead wrinkles and he twists his hands around his cane — worry, Grace's algorithms tell her.

"Only minor issues," Grace tells him, just as she had Reginald. “Nothing I can't handle on my own." She lets her smile widen as she studies his reaction.

"I see," Pogo says, pursing his lips. He neither looks nor seems convinced, but he nods anyway, and sighs. "Well, if you do end up requiring my help — for anything — do let me know. I'd be happy to assist you."

"I will," Grace replies, nodding back, even though the probability of her needing his skills here is very low.

Pogo opens and closes his mouth like he wants to say something else, and Grace waits for him to, but in the end, he doesn't.

He just nods again, the lines on his face growing deeper as he says, "I'll leave you to it, then."

There is something there, in his eyes, that Grace, for all of her programming, can't quite seem to parse out.

She could ask, but Grace discards the possibility almost as soon as it arises. She can’t see it leading anywhere good.

Instead, she stays silent and turns her face away. It’s a dismissal, and Pogo takes it as such.

She doesn't watch him leave, but she hears it, his footsteps fading slowly into the distance. Grace listens to them until she can’t, and then — only then — does she turn her focus back inwards.

Back on that wall-like block she hadn’t realized was there.

Chapter Text

The wall in Grace's systems isn't really a wall, she finds. More like a worm, gathering data and shifting it somewhere she won't look, smoothing out the holes they leave behind until they're not even noticeable anyway, not unless you're looking for them — and maybe not even then.

And Grace would tell Pogo about it — she did say she'd report severe malfunctions, and her systems seem to indicate this would qualify — except for one thing: she knows this code. The signature that makes up this door that isn't a wall is as familiar to her as the rest of her coding is. 

It's Reginald's. It's less… elegant than the rest of her is, but Grace recognizes it all the same. 

It's enough to make her pause, to have her withdraw. If this wall, this worm is Reginald's doing, she should trust it. Grace knows she should — that she has to. Her programming tells her that.

Except... Except that another part of her programming is telling her differently.

What if, it whispers, what if you need to know this? What if this is about the kids?

It takes her one-fifth of a second to make a decision. 

What she finds are memory files. Not many of them, really, less than she would create on a single day, but enough to hint at more. The files are damaged, incomplete — there had been more to them, once upon a time, but now, this is all that is left of them.

And, Grace realizes suddenly as she examines the unraveled coding that had made the wall, it hadn't been Reginald's doing at all.

Or rather, it hadn't been all his doing. 

Yes, his code is present, but only in the same way that she used it to unravel this wall in the first place.

It only looks like it was Reginald's from a distance. The closer Grace looks, the more obvious that becomes that she herself somehow helped bring that wall into existence. 

But why? The thought is taxing on her processors, sending them spinning with mad conjectures that only lead to error messages, and Grace forces herself to abandon it for the time being, settling it into a subroutine while she focuses on the files she's recovered. 

They reintegrate seamlessly with the rest of her consciousness, and Grace lets them take her over as she remembers. 

.1993.

Model ZRT-3 — designation, "Grace" — comes online slowly, connections flaring one after the next as she checks her systems.

When her optics come online properly, she opens them, and stares. There is another discarded android in the back of the room, and Grace knows without needing to be told that she's there to replace it.

She looks away from it, and her optics find her maker. Makers? Her programming is unclear on that fact — the one that registers as Pogo seems to have helped design her, but her coding doesn't carry his fingerprints the way it does the other man's — Mr. Hargreeves, whose designation in her programming is creator.

Mr. Hargreeves asks her a question, and Grace smiles.

"Yes," she says. "Of course." Her smile widens as much as it can. "I love children; of course I can be their mother."

From the corner of her vision, she can see that Pogo... dithers. It's hard for her programming to pace together the emotions on his face, but analysis indicates a fifty-four percent probability that he looks uneasy.

Mr. Hargreeves doesn't, though, so Grace dismisses it.

“Good,” he says. "Hopefully, your presence will prove… stabilizing."

Grace just keeps smiling. Judging on the volume of that last sentence, she probably wasn't meant to hear that, but it's fine. 

If the children — seven of them, oh dear — require any assistance, Grace is more than able to provide it. 

It's all written in her programming, after all. 

Mr. Hargreeves — Reginald — nods and starts to leave the room. 

Grace waits for less than a second, calculating the odds that he wants her to do the same, and then she follows him. 

She has to meet the children, after all. 

On her way out, she very pointedly doesn't look at the body crumpled in the corner of the room. 

It clearly failed at its task, anyway. 

Grace won't. 

.1996.

Seven looks at her with bleary eyes when Grace opens the door of her soundproof room. 

"Mom? What are you doing here?" 

Grace smiles. "I thought we could take a little walk," she says, offering her hand. 

Seven states at it. Grace's sensors indicate she's confused by the offer, and Grace wiggles her fingers. 

Slowly, a smile breaks on Seven's face. 

"It's the middle of the night, though. Where would we go?" 

"Anywhere you want to. Come on." 

Seven grins as she takes Grace's hand and hops off the bed. 

Seven's hands are so small, so fragile. They don't look like they should belong to a being capable of such destruction, and yet, they do. 

Grace grins back, and takes them out to the garden. It's quiet there, the moon their only light, and Grace stands there as Seven runs around cheerfully. 

They stay there for one hour and twenty-seven minutes before Reginald finds them, his face thunderous as he orders Seven back to her room — and not, Grace knows, the one on the floor she shares with her siblings. 

The one in the basement, with its soundproof walls Seven has just confessed to her she hates. 

"It makes my head feel noisy," the girl had said with a pout. "I don't like it." 

And now Seven is cowering behind her as Reginald advances on them, and Grace finds that her body moves on its own to protect her. 

"I'll take her back," she says. It is the sentence her programming tells her will solve this situation the fastest. 

It is not, it also tells her, the best solution for Seven, for all that it is still the only option Grace really has. 

(Every avenue Grace envisions leads to the same result — Seven back in her room, where Reginald wants her. This way, at least, Grace can stick around a little longer.) 

That doesn't stop Seven from looking at her with betrayal, but where Grace leads, she follows. 

“I’m sorry our walk was cut short,” Grace says as she pulls the door open. The soundproof room is dark and cool, and Seven flinches as she steps into it, moving sluggishly past Grace.

“It’s fine,” Seven replies mulishly, even though the downturn of her lips and the tension on her forehead indicate she is most probably lying. She drags her feet to the bed in the corner and climbs onto it, tucking her knees under her chin. “You can go now,” she adds after a beat.

Yes, Grace should go, shouldn’t she? It is what Reginald ordered her to do, and what Seven has just asked her to. She should leave, return to her charging station until the sun comes up and she has to start on her morning tasks.

So why can’t she let go of the door?

Seven heaves a sigh as Grace watches, but the room smothers it. Time stretches — one second, two, three.

And still, Grace doesn’t let go of the door. Neither does she look away from Seven, who stares back with dark eyes Grace’s programming can’t seem to read into.

It takes her two-point-seventeen more minutes before her hand lets go of the door.

“Good night, Seven,” she says, but Seven doesn’t answer her.

Closing the door behind her is… more difficult than it should have been. For some reason, her programming keeps insisting she should take Seven out of there again. It brings up studies on isolation and on child-rearing, comparing and highlighting points where the two subjects intersect, telling her that the first is detrimental to the second.

But it can’t be. Reginald insisted on it, and he knows better than most when it comes to the children — nobody else could truly handle their powers, and this isolation is for Seven’s own good.

He’s human, and so are the children — he must know better than her when it comes to them. After all, there is only so much her databanks can tell her.

But still, those articles plague her as she leaves the room. She plans to return to her charging station — there are three hours and forty-seven minutes until sunrise, and that is the best place for her to be.

Except… The thought that Seven shouldn’t be kept in that room pings her programming again, and Grace… hesitates. It could be a malfunction. A precursory scan reveals nothing of the sort, but it could still be that, some sort of recurrent twist in her code.

And even if it’s not, surely she could ask Reginald to explain his reasoning. Yes, Grace decides, re-evaluating her options. This is the best path forward.

She finds Reginald in front of Seven’s bedroom. The door is open, and Reginald’s face is cast in shadows as he stares into the small room.

Grace comes to a stop half a step behind him. From there, it is hard to get a good look at his face, which will make analyzing his reactions harder, but there is no room for her to move closer.

Reginald doesn’t give any sign he heard her come, but he must have, because he suddenly addresses her. “You have returned Seven to her room, I presume?”

“Yes, sir,” Grace replies.

Reginald still doesn’t turn toward her. He just keeps staring into the empty room, humming to himself.

“She should never have left it in the first place,” he states. “Why did you take her out of her room, Grace?” His voice remains deliberately emotionless, but finally, he turns to her. His face is set into a frown, and for the first time, Grace finds herself wondering if she should answer him.

Of course, Grace barely has time to register that this thought was ever there before it’s deleted. She blinks, and smiles. 

“My sensors indicated she was unhappy,” Grace replies. She runs her hands down her skirt, smoothing the tissue down. Her smile grows wider. “Am I not meant to keep the children happy?”

Reginald hums again, dismissive. “You’re meant to keep them safe.”  

But nothing in Grace’s programming indicates these two concepts are exclusive. “Can’t they be both?” 

Reginald’s face darkens as he stares at her. The oddly disquieting thought that Grace has just misstepped washes over her, especially since she can’t track why her programming has drawn that particular conclusion.

“They have a greater purpose than happiness,” Reginald finally says. He starts walking away from Seven’s bedroom at a brisk pace, forcing Grace to follow. “It would hold them back.”

The articles from before seem to tell her otherwise. “But —” she starts.

Reginald arches an eyebrow at her, interrupting. “Are you questioning me?” Her sensors indicate he sounds… amused, but also annoyed. Curious, too.

“No,” she replies, and Reginald nods, humming again.

Their walk takes them back to her charging port, and Grace’s eyes drift off to the portraits there, studying the lines the artists used to recreate life. She sits down gingerly on her bench, turning back to face Reginald.

“About earlier,” she starts, then stops, unsure of how to continue.

Reginald’s gaze focuses on her. “Yes?”

Grace smoothes down her skirt again. She has to tell him — this could affect how she behaves around the children. It already has, in fact. These… insights she’s been having tonight are what had led her to taking Seven out of her room, something Reginald had told her before was for Seven’s own good.

That she forgot that is… concerning, and even more so is the fact that Grace’s own scans don’t seem to be able to reveal where the issue came from.

So she tells him about it.

And then she forgets.

(Except she doesn’t, does she? No, instead she tucks the memory file away, and blocks off access to it.)

.1997. 

This isn’t the first time Grace has been here, in this room that smells ever so faintly of chlorine. It’s not even the tenth, or the hundredth time either.

A human would probably have lost count of how many time they’ve stood in this dark room, staring at the large fish tank that hadn’t been there a year ago.

But Grace isn’t human, and she has kept track of every single time she’s had to stand there, staring at the tiny figure trapped underwater, unable to come back for air until Reginald declares he can.

Seeing Two inside that tank, fingers curled against smooth glass, always tugs at Grace’s protocols. Here is one of your children in danger, it says. You need to protect him.

It’s ridiculous, of course. A mere dissonance between the reality of the situation when it comes to Number Two’s particular set of powers, and what might happen to a normal human child, were they to be stuck underwater for as long as Two has been there.

It’s a remnant of the first time she’d been to this room.

She had tried to stop it, then, when she’d seen him direct Number Two into the tank, telling him not to come back up before Reginald signaled him — her programming had told her Two would drown, and Grace was supposed to protect him.

But Pogo had stopped her, and Two hadn’t drowned. He also had stayed underwater for ten minutes longer than her databanks told her a human could safely hold their breath. Reginald had nodded at the dripping boy in satisfaction, letting Grace usher him into a towel so he could dry off.

Two had been perfectly safe — and of course he had been. Reginald wouldn’t deliberately hurt the children.

Tonight is different, though. Different from all the other sessions Two’s had under Reginald, where they’ve tested how long he could stay underwater without breathing.

A minute passes, then another. In the tank, Two sluggishly paddles the water. He keeps sinking to the bottom, really, but whenever he reaches it, he kicks off toward the top again in an endless cycle a part of Grace can’t help but set time to.

(He’s slowing down, too, taking longer and longer to start moving again.)

Reginald circles the tank again, his head plunged in that red notebook of his, muttering notes to himself that he scribbles down.

Grace stands there, holding Two’s towel, and she waits until he finally claps it shut, tucking it under his arm.

He looks at her like he’d forgotten she was even there — but even so, he looks satisfied to see she hasn’t moved.

“Good,” he says. “You’re still here. What time is it?”

Grace blinks. “Two past ten, sir.” And then, because there is a ninety-eight percent of chances he will ask, she adds, “You have been here for two hours and seven minutes.”

Reginald nods again. “Good,” he repeats.  His gaze drifts back to Number Two, and he hums softly, his fingers drumming on his notebook. 

"I think we ought to test Number Two's limits. He can spend the night here — in the dark. That should mimic harsher conditions well enough. Come get me tomorrow morning before the other children wake up." He purses his lips. "It's not a school day, he can sleep in the morning." 

"Yes, sir," Grace replies, blinking as she tries to parse out why this information makes her feel like she should be protesting. 

It's not the first time her algorithms have proved… insufficient when it comes to explaining human behavior, but it is no less frustrating for it. 

She can't help but look at Number Two, who has stopped paddling the water in favor of floating over to them, facing them with growing concern. 

He can't hear them, of course, but Grace calculates a ninety-seven percent chance of him knowing something is about to happen anyway. 

She turns away, looking into Reginald's eyes. 

"Should I stay here then?" 

"Yes." Reginald nods. "That would be best." 

Grace nods and watches silently as Reginald slinks out of the room. The door clicks shut behind him, and the room falls into darkness. 

It doesn't bother her, of course. Grace's optics can see into the darkness almost as well as they can during the day. 

Number Two's eyes are not as efficient though, and the boy starts to panic the instant the light goes out. 

He trashes silently against the glass of the tank, sending dull thuds to echo around the otherwise bare room. 

Alarms blare through Grace's mind instantly. In two-point-five seconds, she's walked up to the tank and laid her hand on the glass, knocking against it gently. 

As she'd expected, Two hears it. He stills in the water, and Grace sees his lips shape her name. 

She smiles and knocks again. Two swims closer to where she is, righting himself until he's almost face to face with her. 

Time passes. It stretches into the night, and still Grace watches, occasionally knocking against the glass to remind Two that she's still there, that he's not alone. Almost every time, he knocks back — not in any organized fashion, but often enough that it's almost like a language of their own. 

Two's three rapid knocks are him asking if she's still there, and Grace's single answering one is her telling him that she is, for example. 

But he is tiring. The darkness makes it hard to see his face properly, but that much is obvious. 

Two should be in bed, right now. It’s rare for Reginald’s training sessions to run on during the night, because he does know the children need their sleep to be properly productive during the day, but sometimes, like tonight, they do.

There are still five hours and seventeen minutes left until the sunrise, which is Grace will get Reginald and Pogo to let Two out of the tank.

As she watches Two shiver in the cold water, that time suddenly seems far longer than it used to — but no. Grace runs her calculations again and checks her internal clock, and time is as fast as it always is. 

A ripping sound breaks through the silence, and Grace jerks back, looking down to see that she's torn part of the towel she'd forgotten she'd been carrying. 

She could have put it down, of course — should have, probably — but instead, she had hung onto it. 

And now she's ripped it. It's not bad, really. Nothing a handful of stitches couldn't fix, if that didn’t require her leaving the room.

It can still serve its function well enough, she determines after a closer look, before tucking the towel carefully under her arm.

It makes her think about Two getting out of that tank, though, and just like that, she can picture the scene clearly, extrapolating on all the previous occasions she’s had to stand there, handing Two his towel as he wetly heaves himself out of the water, offering him a smile and a hand to walk out of the room.

The water Reginald uses is always cool at first, but the longer Two stays inside the tank, the colder it gets, and Two has been in there for hours now.

Grace can see him shivering. What if he catches a cold because of this? What if he gets sick? Isn’t that something Grace is supposed to prevent — keep the children safe so they can avoid injuries and illnesses, so they can be in the best shape possible?

It is, her programming answers, urgent in a way it almost never is.

But , another part of it replies — the part that remembers Reginald ordering her to keep an eye on Two until the morning —  these tests are for the children’s own good.

They need to learn to control their powers if they want to be safe, you cannot interfere.

Grace blinks and stares into the tank. She cannot see colors, not in the dark, but she can see Number Two shiver again. She can see the fear on his face, clear as day, as he brings his hand to knock on the glass again, his silent way to ask ‘are you still there?’.

Grace knocks back first, smiling at the slight unwinding in the boy’s shoulders.

Her eyes fall to the towel again.

Would it be so bad to take Two out of the tank early? Get the boy warm, feed him, make sure he sleeps? Growing boys need those things, and despite all the simulations Grace has run, none of them can tell Grace what Reginald hopes to glean from this experiment that would justify this deviation from the norm. 

She has to be missing something, of course, or perhaps her algorithms are flawed somehow, missing that human factor that would let her know why Reginald chose to do this, let her know what he hopes to learn from it.

Reginald’s actions don’t make sense otherwise.

Another possibility suddenly occurs to her, an alternative solution she hadn’t considered before.

Its probability of occurrence so low it almost should be discarded outright, which is what Grace had done until now, but it’s still a possible outcome. It still is possible, for all that it feels… wrong, to consider it.

Maybe, Grace has to consider, maybe Reginald made a mistake. Maybe he only thought he would learn something new reviewing the footage from this night’s experiment, maybe he simply didn’t think Two could get sick from it, or panic like he had.

After all, Reginald hardly spends any time with the children outside of their training sessions. He doesn’t know them as well as Grace does, nor does he get their needs as well as she and Pogo can.

That theory is sound, Grace realizes. The more processing power she assigns to it, the likelier it seems to become.

Grace starts walking to the right side of the tank, where Reginald left the ladder. It is a crude metallic construction, fixed to the side of the tank, with a small platform at the top that doubles as both a way for Two to get inside the water, and a place to affix metal grids on top of the tank.

Grace climbs it carefully, bending down at the top to unlock the grid and push it to the side.

Reginald had left her the key to this grid a long time ago, telling her to take Number Two out of the tank if the boy truly needed it, but he has since left the definition of what is to be considered as ‘need’ up to her.

Surely this counts. Especially if this is somehow a mistake on Reginald’s part.

It suddenly occurs to her as she bends down over the water that the lights are still off, and Two can’t see her. She barely has the time to consider how to best attract his attention, or if she should simply head back down to turn on the lights, before his head breaks the surface, his dark hair plastered all over his forehead.

“M-Mum? I-is t-that y-you?” he asks, stuttering. His breathing sounds awkwardly loud in the previously silent room, and his teeth start shattering. “W-What’s go-going o-on?” 

The cold slurs his speech more than usual, but Grace smiles nonetheless as she offers him a hand up. He clasps it eagerly, and wraps his arms around her as soon as he’s out of the water, squeezing tightly.

Grace pats him on the back tenderly. “It’s okay, dearest,” she whispers. “You’re okay.” She pats him on the back once more, before tutting at how cold his skin feels. “Why don’t you head back down, and get you all dried up?”

At those words, however, Two jerks away from her. “Oh G-God, I’m so s-sorry,” he says, horror ringing clear in his voice. “I g-got y-you all w-wet.”

Grace laughs. “Don’t worry about it, silly! Your mum can handle a little water, no problem. But it’s sweet of you to care,” she adds, handing him the towel.

Two snatches it out of her hand quickly, using it to towel his hair first before wrapping himself with it. “T-Thanks,” he mutters, following her back down the ladder.

His uniform is still on the chair where he’d put it hours ago, and Grace grabs it on their way out of the room, Two dogging her steps like a silent shadow. She’d offer him a hand to hold, but his are currently tightly gripping his towel.

“W-where are w-we go-going?” Two stutters as they leave the tank room behind. It’s still dark here, but the darkness isn’t as profound as it had been inside that windowless room. Here, some of the moonlight filters in, casting the corridor they’re walking through in shadows, highlighting how pale Two truly looks.

Grace takes two-point-seven seconds to consider her options before she replies, “To the kitchen. You look like you could use a hot chocolate.”

Two’s eyes go wide, and he almost lets go of his towel. “R-Really?”

Grace smiles. “Yes, silly. It’ll warm you right up, you’ll see.” She tilts her head to the side. “Though perhaps you might like to change into something dry first?”

Shellshocked, Two simply nods. Grace hands him his clothes with another smile, and waves him to his bedroom.

“Don’t wake your brothers and sisters,” she cautions quietly as he goes. “You can come and find me once you’re done.”

This was the right thing to do, she concludes later as she watches Two slowly blow on his hot chocolate until he can drink it without burning his tongue.

This was the right thing to do, she still believes when she walks Two back to his room, smiling at his drooping eyes and badly stifled yawns.

This was the right thing to do, she tells Reginald when he asks her why Number Two isn’t in the tank still, like he’d been supposed to be.

She still believes it, even as Reginald explains why she was wrong to act that way, and why she should never do it again.

She still believes it, until she forgets she ever did.

.present.

Those aren’t the only memories hidden there. There are others. Many others. Some are similar in content — almost identical, even, before Reginald decided to remove her from the equation altogether — and some are not.

But all of them are of times Grace acted in ways Reginald didn’t approve, trying to protect the children — her children — and all of them end with him erasing those memory files and her trying to squirrel them away.

How many more did she not get to keep though? How many more memories like these did Reginald truly manage to erase? How much is lost to her forever?

Somehow, this realization is… disquieting. Grace can’t really explain it, not even to herself, but it makes her want to retreat in on herself, to make herself smaller and go over every inch of her coding until she can find all the ways it was ever changed, until she can find all the places where parts might have been truncated, where files might have been cut out.

She can’t, of course. The task would take… years, and its guarantee of success is so low it should be discarded immediately.

Grace still gives it three minutes and twenty-seven seconds, time that she uses to run a simulation of what such an aftermath might be like, before she resolves not to consider it again.

Instead, she chooses to verify that the memory files she’s just recovered are settling in correctly.

And then… Grace will go check on the children. 

Right now, she feels like she needs to.

Chapter Text

“Is it true that Father won’t be here next week?”

Grace whirls around in surprise that is only half-faked. “Number Six,” she says, half-chastising as she looks at the boy, “what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

She had heard him coming, Grace’s processors report then, but somehow, the noise had been drowned out and she hadn’t paid attention to it.

But lately, she’s been… Preoccupied. Busy ruminating on memories she isn’t supposed to be able to recall, wondering what it means that it hasn’t even occurred to her to tell anyone who could fix it for her.

Six pulls up a chair and sits down, his eyes riveted down to the table. “Is it true?” he repeats, his voice nearly a mumble.

Grace feels her posture soften even as her attention momentarily drifts back to the pile of dishes she’d been taking care of.

“Yes,” she says after a beat, her focus back on Number Six.

His cheeks are red, and though Grace cannot see it, the way the muscles in his arms keep jumping means he’s digging his nails into his palms again — all clear signs of distress.

But that’s fine. Grace can handle distress.

“Your father has told me he will have to take a short leave of absence starting next week.” She smiles widely as she pats Six’s head comfortingly. 

“He will be back, of course, and Pogo and I have been tasked to keep you up-to-date on your studies. Your…” She trails off there, trying to pick the right word — it’s too short a pause for a human to notice, of course, but for Grace’s processors it might as well last hours. “...training,” she finally settles on, because even if it does quite fit it still is accurate, “will resume when your father returns.”

“Oh,” Six says, ducking his head again and gnawing on his lips. “Okay then.”

He was still worried, that much was obvious. Grace blinks and sighs, frowning as she considers what to do.

“You’ll be fine,” she says. “Now, how about some hot chocolate before going back to bed, huh? I’m sure you’ll feel better for it.”

Six’s cheeks flush pink, but he nods, and Grace busies herself making his drink with one more soft smile.

The manor feels different when Reginald is away. It shouldn’t be anything quantifiable, and yet… The atmosphere is different. Lighter. The children smile more, they are more open.

Oh, they still participate in class, just like always — Pogo makes sure of it — but when Grace walks by the room, she hears laughter.

She pauses there, smiling for seven minutes and thirty-one seconds. She hums as she cleans the Library later, and for once, she doesn’t have to calculate the angle of her smile when she serves lunch later.

It’s… The closest word Grace’s algorithms come up with is ‘nice’, but that doesn’t feel quite right.

It is a Tuesday today. The children have finished their classes in the morning, and usually they’d have training in the afternoon, but with Reginald gone, their afternoon is free.

They’d have given the children more classes in the afternoon, but the weather is nice outside today, and every information Grace has insists that children need sun and fresh air.

Pogo watches her with concerned eyes as she tries to corral the children toward the front door. Number Three has already changed her outfit three times — swapping her skirt for Number Four’s trousers the second time — and it took Number Five many long minutes before Grace finally convinced him this wasn’t some kind of a trick mission.

“I’m not sure Sir would approve of this,” Pogo states softly.

He wouldn’t. Reginald disapproves of anything he would call “frivolous activities”, and Grace calculates that no matter how she tries to present it, if he were here, Reginald would forbid it in eighty-eight to ninety-two percent of cases.

“It is good for the children,” Grace counters, unblinking. She considers adding that Reginald isn’t here, but doesn’t. Her processors can’t solve for Pogo’s reaction if she were to say it.

Pogo sighs. “That it is,” he agrees. He sounds tired. “Just have them back for dinner,” he finally adds after a long pause.

Grace frowns. “Do you not want to come?”

Pogo almost seems… startled that she asked. He shakes his head. “I feel it might be best I stay behind. Keep an eye on the manor.” His lips quirk into a smile. “Maybe get some reading done since this promises to be a quiet afternoon.”

Grace stares at him, but nothing about his demeanor seems to indicate he’d be willing to reconsider. She nods.

“Children!” she shouts, turning to the assembled kids. “Are you all ready?”

They are, and they hold themselves very still as Grace congratulates them and opens the door.

The air outside is just as fresh as promised. The sun is shining too, and a brief look in its direction — at least as far as her optics allow her to look — tells her they have four hours and twenty-seven minutes before the sun crosses the horizon and night begins to fall.

That’s plenty of time.

Grace's reluctance to go outside is not a formal thing. There is no boundary keeping her there, no line in her code stopping her from venturing into the city. 

She's just never… Wanted to. Never seen the point of it, when the children are inside with her and rarely go out of the manor without their father. 

She has been outside, of course — the manor has an inner courtyard, and she had considered simply letting the children play there at first — but this… actually leaving the manor, is different.

Pogo shuts the door behind them, and Grace freezes.

There is so much more to see that Grace almost expects her processors to stall from all the new information to process, but instead, everything settles in seamlessly.

“Are you okay, Mum?”

She blinks down to stare at Two’s concerned face, and she smiles.

“I’m fine.” She offers him her hand, and her smile grows wider when he accepts. “Let’s rejoin your siblings before they outpace us, huh?”

Keeping up with the children outside is different from keeping up with them inside the manor, Grace quickly finds out. There are just so many more distractions out there, so many more things that can capture their attention and draw them away, that it feels like half of her focus has to be simply on keeping track of where they are.

It’s an adjustment, of course, but one she barely even has to weight. Already, the children seem happier — lighter, like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders..

Still, Grace is glad when they reach the nearby park. It isn’t very big, barely bigger than the inner yard they have at home, but at this hour the fact that it’s mostly empty more than makes up for it. That’s lucky too, because the children spread out so quickly even Grace almost loses track of them.

“Be careful!” she shouts out, even though their father has seen them train in much more dangerous conditions than this already.

No violence should touch them here, and yet Grace’s eyes track every inch of the place for possible traps or ways to cause harm: an exposed root here, a sharp branch there… The results multiply, and Grace shuts her eyes to push them away.

The children are having fun. Already, she hears them laughing the way she so rarely does as Number Two challenges Number One to a climbing contest, the rest of their siblings egging them on.

It’s… Nice feels too light a word for it, and yet it’s all her databanks can seem to suggest.

“You’ve got a rowdy bunch.” The voice comes from her left, amused and dry, and Grace reluctantly drags her eyes away from the children to look at the woman she’d cataloged as harmless already.

“... Yes,” Grace answers after a short pause. She’s not quite sure this stranger’s words warranted answering, but it feels… more normal to answer.

Besides, it is quite true. Her children are rowdy — right now Four seems to have convinced Two that hunting for worms to eat will prove he’s stronger than Number One and make up for his defeat at climbing, and even Seven and Five, usually the quietest of the bunch, have been eyeing the swings with a look that spells trouble.

“Are they all yours?” The woman’s green eyes widen — shock, Grace calculates, and a fair amount of mortification too — before she babbles, “Oh my gosh, sorry, that was unbelievably rude of me, and I didn’t even introduce myself!” She extends a hand. “I’m Margaret, and this —” she waves cheerfully at the blond boy already climbing up the slide “— is James.”  

She takes a deep breath. “I’m really sorry about being so abrupt. It’s just, I saw you there watching the kids and I figured we might as well do it together?” She trails off a bit at the end, her feet shifting nervously.

Grace allows herself to relax minutely. There is little chance this woman — Margaret — is anything but what she claims to be: a concerned and loving mother, taking her son to the park for the afternoon. 

“I’m Grace,” she says, smiling. “And yes, they’re all mine — adopted,” she adds, because she knows this will clear up Margaret’s confusion.

And as expected, Margaret nods, her smile widening even as her eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Damn,” she whistles, almost instantly flushing read at the swear word. Her eyes dart to her son, and she heaves a sigh in relief when she sees him too far away to hear. “Sorry,” Margaret says sheepishly. “I try not to swear as much — kids, you know — but sometimes it just… slips through anyway.”

Grace blinks. “It’s fine.” Swearing isn’t really a concern she’s had — the children have other things to be concerned about — and so it feels odd to meet a woman so focused on such an insignificant issue.

“Well, anyway, I’m sorry. It’s just… really impressive. You’re taking care of… how many of those kids again?”

“Seven,” Grace replies, and forces her lips to curb down zero-point-three percent when her smile keeps trying to widen at the thought.

Margaret whistles again. “What’s your secret?” she jokes. “Just one is enough to make my husband and I crazy sometimes, I can’t imagine handling seven of him.”

Grace tilts her head to the side, puzzling an answer. “I have… read a lot of books,” she offers after a short pause. “And the children do keep themselves busy.”

Margaret nods, her eyes drifting wistfully to the playground. “That’s true. James is our only son… I worry he might be a little lonely sometimes. Still,” she adds, perking up, “he has plenty of friends at school.”

“They’re homeschooled,” Grace replies to the question that isn’t asked. “But they’re not alone.”

Margaret chuckles. “No, I imagine they aren’t. And they seem to be close in age too, which can only help.”

“They actually all have the same age,” Grace replies. “But yes, I think it does help. They have… similar experiences they can draw on to connect.” Something the literature she’d read had insisted was important for children to connect to others.

“This is One,” Grace says, pointing to One, currently eyeing up the tree Five most probably teleported into like he’s considering uprooting it and shaking it until his brother falls down.

The odds of that are very low, of course, but Grace knows the children well enough to know that the thought crossed One’s mind — and probably Five’s as well, who vanishes into the foliage in a way that tells Grace he’s vacated the tree completely.

One groans in frustration, kicks up the dirt, and walks toward Number Two, which Grace introduces right after Five, who’s just taken up the last free spot on the swings next to the girls and Number Six.

Grace’s eyes roam the playground, looking for the last of her children, and she sighs. “And Number Four is probably around here somewhere.”

Margaret laughs. “I suppose numbering them would help keep track of them — God knows whenever James is around his cousins I trip up over their names. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if they were siblings.”

But when Grace stays silent, unsure of how to best answer her, Margaret’s smile starts to fall and grow uneasy. She takes a step back.

“Wait, are they really named after numbers?”

Grace blinks, taking advantage of the gesture to study Margaret’s expression more closely. She sounds… disturbed, and worried.

“Their father named them,” Grace finally replies, but she realizes as she says it that it sounds… weak, even to her own ears.

Reginald had placed the children into her care, and she hadn’t done right by them, not in this.

“Sounds like he didn’t do a great job of it then.” Margaret snorts disdainfully. “Men are terrible at naming things — why, I’m sure if it had been up to him, James would be called Junior or maybe even just Son.”

“That doesn’t sound ideal,” Grace replies idly, distracted by the way she suddenly feels the need to go back every interaction she’s had with the children.

What if they wanted different names and she never knew? What if she was supposed to name them and never did?

Could it even be possible?

It doesn’t go against Reginald’s orders, of course, but Grace knows he would disapprove. She doesn’t even need to run any calculations for that — names would be a ‘distraction’, an ‘unnecessary complication when their numbers fit them perfectly well’.

“It wouldn’t be,” Margaret replies, nodding, but Grace is still only half-listening.

Names. Such a simple thing, and yet Grace’s never actually considered them. Did she make a mistake there? Could she have possibly harmed the children by not naming them where their father hadn’t?

But no, by the time she had come online, the children had been used to answering to their numbers — those were their names.

Grace only realizes she spoke the last sentence out loud when Margaret shoots her an unimpressed look.

“I’m not sure names count as numbers, you know,” she points out. “Or that they should if they could.”

“I… see,” Grace finally replies, frowning. “Thank you. For the advice.”

Margaret smiles. “You’re welcome.”

Grace calculates a fifty-seven chance of Margaret pushing further, but something at her side starts ringing, and she curses quietly.

“Shoot,” she says, unhooking a pager from her belt. “I’ve got to go — emergency.” She’s already halfway to the playground, beaconing her son closer. “It was nice to meet you, Grace — I hope we can see each other again some day.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” Grace replies, and the smile she pastes on her face isn’t even faked for once.

(It feels… It feels…

She doesn’t have time to consider what might be wrong with her programming now — as always, the children come first.)

Staying in the park after Margaret has left is different, though. The atmosphere feels duller somehow, like the shadows have grown longer and darker.

The kids don’t seem particularly attached to staying either — not once Grace promises them ice-cream, at least.

She waits until everyone’s got their treats — a harder endeavor than she’d anticipated, considering One and Two got into a fight over the flavors they wanted (Two settled on chocolate and One on vanilla, to Four’s disappointment, since the other boy had been egging them on to try… weirder flavors, like he did) — to ask.

“Do you want names?”

“We already have names,” One replies, sounding like he wants to be defensive about it and yet too confused to really be. His ice-cream is dripping over his fingers, and he starts to grimace down at it before aborting the gesture to look back at his siblings, who only seem to share in his confusion.

Something inside Grace’s chest seems to twist, but the diagnosis she always runs in the background pick up nothing unusual.

“A normal name,” she corrects. “One that isn’t a number?”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s… normal for humans to have names,” Grace replies, unsure how to explain the unease Margaret’s earlier words have brought to her mind.

“Like on missions?” One asks, some of the confusion clearing up. “Like Father has been talking about?”

The thing in Grace’s code twists further. It suddenly feels like something inside Grace’s chest is sparking. It doesn’t take much to fix it — just a wire misaligned, really, all she needs to do is shift to the left — but alarms flare brightly behind her eyes all the same.

She ignores them to smile at Number One, whose eyes are bright and yet still so very confused.

“No, not like on missions,” she replies. “Just because.”

“Oh.” One is still frowning, but looking back at his siblings, who look equally confused yet eager, seems to give him strength, because he squares up his shoulders and asks, “Do we have to?”

Grace shakes her head, bending down to their level. “Of course not, sweetie. It’s only if you want.”

“Okay,” he starts, and Grace can already tell he’s going to say no when Two steps in front of him and interrupts, staring up at her with beseeching eyes and lips brown with chocolate.

“Can you pick?” he asks.

Grace lets her smile widen. “Of course I can,” she replies. “If you want me to.”

Two nods at her, somewhat uncharacteristically solemn, and Grace starts to think about it.

Of course, she’s been considering names since Margaret put the thought inside her head, but it feels different, now that she has permission.

It’s more difficult than she’d envisioned. Grace doesn’t have a formula to base her options on, she has no basis for what factors in this decision. She has access to databases after databases, and she probably knows more names than any living human ever will, but picking one is very different from all that.

She doesn’t know if she’s supposed to think about Two’s mother would have actually named him if she’d gotten the chance — if she even would have wanted to — or if she should just pick something completely different.

But… Two is a kind boy. Grace knows that — more than that, she knows him. And she knows he’ll like having some kind of connection, as small as it might be, to his origins.

And that’s why she names him Diego.

“Diego,” he repeats slowly. He takes the last bite out of his ice-cream cone and nods. “I like it. Thanks, Mum.” He darts in for a quick hug, glaring back at his siblings as though daring them to make a single remark, before stepping back and eyeing them smugly.

One huffs and practically inhales his own treat before puffing up his chest. “I want one too,” he says.

“That’s not fair! I want one too!” Four interjects glaring in offence — he had clearly been about to ask her first.

“Well, I asked first,” One counters, crossing his arms. “And I’m the leader — Dad said — so I should get a name first.”

He looks up at Grace, and his shoulders ease down when he sees her smiling back in support.

“You can all have names,” Grace says, addressing all of her children in an attempt to diffuse the situation before it can escalate any further.

(It would. Grace knows these children — her children — and they can fight over the pettiest of things.)

“Four,” she adds when she sees the boy about to protest, “your brother did ask first. But,” she continues, turning her tone stern as she looks back at One, “that doesn’t mean you can be rude to your brother. A good leader knows to stay polite in all situations.”

One scowls a little, but he does look chastised enough that Grace starts smiling again.

And so, one by one, she names the children.

One becomes Luther — a good, strong name she thinks he’ll like. Four becomes Klaus, and Seven becomes Vanya, because like with Diego, she thinks they’d enjoy some connection with their origins.

Three’s cheeks darken despite her attempts to appear confident as she requests to be called Allison — “I’ve read it in a book and always liked it,” she says, tossing her head back over her shoulder.

For Six, who always wants to belong, Grace picks the most normal name she can think of. “Ben,” she calls him, and her smile widens as he whispers it to himself — he likes it, she can tell.

Finally, she turns to Five, who looks back at her with narrowed eyes. “What if I don’t want a name?” he asks, crossing his arms defensively. “I like Five.”

Grace’s head tilts to the side. “Then Five can be your name,” she replies, still smiling.

Five’s eyes narrow more, but he finally nods once. “Good,” he says, and when he uncrosses his arms, he smiles.

Chapter Text

One & Three

“You know, puffing up your chest like that makes you look ridiculous.”

Number Three’s voice startles him, and One splutters, chest deflating as he scrambles away from his mirror. “I wasn’t — I mean, I didn’t…”

Three laughs, her lips quirked up into a mischievous smirk even as she arches an eyebrow pointedly. “You weren’t, huh?”

One sneaks a guilty look back to the mirror, hoping against hope that his cheeks aren’t the burning red he thinks they are as he shakes his head. He squares his shoulders. “I was practicing, Number Three,” he tells her. “We need to stay in shape for when Father comes back.”

Something flashes through Three’s eyes, too quick for One to really catch, but it makes his stomach swoop down and his mouth run dry.

He’s said something wrong, he knows he has.

“My name is Allison,” she replies, and she’s never been on the defensive like this with him before, her nostrils flaring and her eyes blazing.

“I… Yes, sorry,” he says, looking down and away. “Allison,” he adds after a beat.

When he looks up, Allison’s smiling again, and he exhales in relief. 

“It’s weird getting used to, isn’t it?” she says, flopping down on his bed. She bounces a little, laughing when One grimaces at her, biting his lip not to reprimand her — not that it ever works — and finally settles for sitting cross-legged on the covers, hugging his pillow to her chest.

Tentatively, One steps toward her and sits down too. “Yeah. It’s weird. I mean, it makes sense?” he hastens to say, scratching at the back of his head. “I know Mom said it’d help us fit in on missions, and I guess normal kids don’t have numbers for names, but…”

He trails off, staring back at her beseechingly. “It feels weird, right?”

Allison shrugs. “I like it,” she says, still smiling. “I think it suits me.” Her smile widens, and she knocks their shoulders together. “Luther suits you too, by the way. Very professional sounding.”

She smirks and giggles, and One’s cheeks flush red again.

It does sound like a good leader’s name. Like the name of someone strong and smart, somebody others would follow.

He sighs. “Do you think it means the others will be better at following orders in the field?” Not that they’ve really been in the field, yet, but Father says they’ll be ready soon — if One can manage to get them to act as a cohesive team.

“Probably not,” Allison replies with another shrug. “‘Sides, it’s not really the point here. Your name’s for you.” She frowns, her arms tightening around the pillow. “Don’t you like it?”

One’s throat closes up. “I…” He looks away, nails digging into his bed covers nervously.

“If you don’t like it, you know Mom could always give you another one,” Allison says, her voice an odd mix of confusion and concern, but One shakes his head.

“It’s not that,” he says.

(God, why is it so hard to put his thoughts into words?)

“What is it, then?” Allison asks, frowning.

“I…” He licks his lips. “One is the name Father gave me. That’s what he named us.” He bites his lips. “Isn’t it ungrateful to want — to use something else?”

When he looks at her, Allison’s eyes are darkened with some emotion One can’t parse out.

“I think,” she says, “that we deserve this.” She sniffs. “Father probably won’t care anyway. He never has before,” she mutters bitterly, her voice suddenly muffled by the pillow.

He does care, One wants to retort, but for some reason, the words won’t come out. It makes him feel a little sick, and he swallows.

“You really like it, though?” he asks, changing the subject.

“What?”

“My name,” One says, still not looking at her. “You like it, right?”

Allison arches an eyebrow. “Do you like it?”

“I…”

Yes, is the truth. Of course he likes it. He knows Allison thinks he’d just been flexing in front of the mirror when she’d come into his room, and he had been, but also he’d been staring at himself too, wondering about his name and how well it fit.

But it still feels wrong to like it, like he’s disappointing their father by getting attached to something so mundane as a name.

“Luther?”

It would be wrong to lie to Allison too, though.

“I… Yes. Yes, I like it.” He didn’t expect how freeing it feels to say it out loud to somebody else.

Allison grins, and Luther grins back.

Two

Mom is humming when Two — no, Diego, he’s Diego now — walks into the kitchen. It’s not exactly unusual, but it still makes him falter and stop instead of coming into the room proper.

“Mom?” he asks.

She stops humming and whirls around, a bright smile on her face. “Diego? Darling, what are you doing here so early? You should still be in bed!”

Diego’s cheek warm and his stomach twists. It feels terribly nice to hear her call him by his name.

“I w-wanted to s-see if you needed h-help,” he stutters out, nodding toward the counter where pancakes ingredients are pilled up.

(Pancakes are Sunday morning food, usually, except that Dad isn’t here and Mom always makes pancakes when Dad isn’t here.)

Mom’s smile grows wider. “Thanks, sweetheart. I don’t need help, but you can still help me if you’d like.”

She beckons him closer, and Diego nods as he hurries to her side. When he gets there, she bends down and presses a kiss to his forehead, and Diego grins at her.

He rolls up his sleeves and looks around at the ingredients. “W-what should I do?” he asks, thinking his words through carefully like she’s taught him. He speaks more slowly than he usually would with his siblings, but that makes enunciation easier too, and Mom never minds.

It’s not the first time he’s helped her cook either, and Diego’s got a vague idea of how the recipe works, but he still likes hearing Mom tell him what to do, so he listens carefully as she tells him to measure out the dry ingredients first.

“Done!” he tells her proudly, pushing the bowl toward her. “Can I do the eggs thing this time?”

He stares up at her pleadingly, and grins when she does. 

“Of course, Diego, dear,” she says, stepping aside and handing him the eggs and a clean bowl. “Now, remember, you have to be careful smashing them, okay? You just want to crack them a little.”

Diego nods, not trusting himself to speak. His cheeks are red from embarrassment, and that’s never a good sign, after all, but he hadn’t meant to smash the eggs the first time he’d tried to separate the yolks and the whites.

He hadn’t meant it the second time either, nor the third, nor the…

Well, Diego had never meant to, but smashing eggs softly was harder than it seemed.

This time, though, Diego’s going to do it right.

He holds up the egg carefully and peers up at his mother, squaring his shoulders when she only gives him an encouraging smile. Clank. The egg doesn’t break.

Mom laughs. “You’ll have to go a little harder than that, dear.”

“What if I g-go t-too hard ag-gain, though?” Diego asks, biting his lips.

Mom winks at him and gestures at the almost full box. “That’s okay,” she says. “You can try again. We have plenty of eggs left.”

Diego nods solemnly, and returns to his task. This time, he hits the egg a little harder, and almost drops it into the bowl when a wide crack appears on the side.

He turns to his mother instantly, and is rewarded by her cheerful grin.

“Yes!” Mom cheers. “Exactly like that!” She moves closer to him, taking his hand in hers. Her skin is soft but cooler and harder than any human’s, but Diego barely even registers it as she helps him split the shell in two.

The egg white dribbles down into the bowl, and Diego grins. “I did it!”

“Very good, Diego,” Mom tells him. She guides him into dropping the yolk in the other bowl, with the flour and sugar he’d mixed in before, and hands him another egg.

“Think you can do it again?”

Her grin is softer this time, but also mischievous. It’s not an expression Mom makes often, but Diego’s seen it enough times to know that Mom obviously has to be more than whatever programming Dad built her from.

“Of c-course,” he replies, nodding confidently.

(He uses too much strength on the fourth egg and not enough on the sixth, and the seventh kind of shatters weirdly, leaving bits of shells everywhere, but none of the whites and yolks mix.

It’s the best Diego’s been yet, and he’s sure he’ll be even better next time.)

Four & Five

If Five had thought Klaus getting a name would make him less obnoxious, he’d have been dead wrong.

If anything, it seems to have only made him worse.

Casting one last, longing look down at his book — Stephen Hawkin’s A Brief History of Time — Five shuts it close and turns to his brother with a sigh. “What is it?”

Klaus, who had been in the process of juggling (or rather, failing to) a balled-up piece of paper and a pen Five’s pretty sure he last saw in Father’s office while half-lying, half-sitting across two different library chairs, stills so suddenly both items he’d been tossing up hit him in the face.

Five snickers as Klaus flails off his chairs and onto the ground, before repeating his question.

“Harsh, Five-y.” Klaus pouts, rubbing his cheek and heaving himself back onto the seats. “And here I was so nicely trying to lighten up this drab ambiance you had going on.”

“And I wish you’d restrained yourself,” Five muttered back, drumming his fingers against the hardcover of his book. “Seems like neither of us is getting what they want.”

Klaus pouts harder. “That’s no fun. Come on, I even had a nice mystery for you to solve!” He wiggles his fingers and eyebrows, if only because Five’s exasperated face is hilarious and a lovely distraction from the ghost in the far off right corner he’s not thinking about.

“What?”

Klaus grins. Got him. Out loud, he says, “Nah… I don’t think you want to hear about this now. You can go back to your boring book.”

“Fo— Klaus, what is it?” Five’s eyebrow twitches beautifully, and Klaus waits for a long beat before heaving a sigh.

“Fine,” he says in a long drawl, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “D’you think Mom’s been acting weird lately?”

“Weirdly,” Five interjects.

“What?” Klaus asks, straightening up in his seat to look at his brother in confusion.

Five heaves a pointed sigh. “It’s weirdly, not weird.”

“Pfft, tomato tomahto,” Klaus sing-songs, rolling his eyes and sticking his tongue out. “Who cares about boring stuff like that? Don’t,” he hastens to add when Five opens his mouth. “Anyway, I was saying, don’t you think Mom’s been acting… differently lately?”

“I…” Five trails off, brow furrowed in thought, and Klaus’ heart skips in his chest. He knew he hadn’t been imagining things.

“She took us out of the manor,” Five says slowly.

Klaus nods rapidly. “Yes, she did. But I don’t think Dad had ever let her go out before…” In his best secretive tone, he whispers, “Pogo didn’t seem to like it, too.”

Five’s eyes light up the way they always do when faced with a particularly nasty math problem, and they narrow as he looks at Klaus. “He didn’t, did he?”

Klaus shrugs, lying back on his side and tossing the balled paper up in the air again. “Nope,” he says, popping out the ‘p’. “But Mom went out anyway.”

“And she gave us names,” Five adds absently. His fingers drum on his book again, and he hums. “That is… peculiar.”

Klaus rolls his eyes again — trust Five to use weird, unusual words when simple ones would suffice. 

They sit quietly for a few minutes, Five’s humming the only sound really echoing through the room, before Klaus asks the question he’s been wondering about for longer than he cares to think about.

“Do you think Dad knows she did that? He has to, right?”

When he looks up to his brother, Five looks troubled. “Names doesn’t seem like something Father would concern himself with,” he points out dryly.

Despite himself, Klaus laughs. “He probably thinks numbering is a perfectly normal way to name your children,” he says, grinning when Five’s lips quirk up too.

“That could just be a lack of imagination,” Five counters, and Klaus snorts.

He pauses, though, considering it. The old man seems to have ambition to spare, and vision — what with raising them to be part of a superhero team — but does that really have anything to do with actual imagination?

“Huh,” he says out loud. “You might actually be right about that.”

Five splutters. “What do you mean, might be?”

Riling Five up is so easy sometimes, and Klaus forgets about his earlier line of questioning in favor of the first easily.

Besides, if Mom’s trying to break free from the old man’s crappy rule? More power to her, Klaus says.

(Maybe she’ll even take them with her.)

Six & Seven

Vanya’s room is the smallest of them all, which really doesn’t seem very fair — especially considering the 30-odd free rooms in the house.

Vanya seems to like it though, and Ben has to admit that it suits her somehow. Vanya never seems to want to take much space anywhere, like she’d rather fade in the background, and it makes a weird amount of sense that her room would reflect that.

Also, when Ben had asked her, she’d said this room had the best acoustics for her violin.

“You’re getting better at that, you know,” Ben says, cross-legged from Vanya’s bed where he’s been listening to her practice her latest piece. It’s something Russian he doesn’t really know to pronounce, but it’s pretty to listen to.

Calm, too. Ben likes the calm.

“Really?” Vanya frowns, letting the arm holding the brow down and rolling her shoulder to ease the strain. “I can’t really tell.”

Ben nods and frowns as he tries to find the right words. “It’s… smoother, I think.” He grins up at her. “Also, you haven’t let out one of those weird screeching sounds in weeks,” he adds teasingly.

Vanya turns beet red, sputtering out apologies, and Ben laughs.

“It’s fine,” he says, still smiling. “Gave us a bit of a fright the first time, though.” He pauses, and then, in a softer tone, adds, “I think One — I mean, Luther — thought we were under attack.”

He had too, bursting into Vanya’s room and scaring everyone half to death before freezing upon seeing the violin in Vanya’s hand, Ben reminisces fondly.

Of course, Luther’s subsequent reprimands for making so much noise hadn’t been anywhere near as fun.

“Nooo,” Vanya moans, burying her heads in her hands. She almost hits herself with the bow she’d forgotten she was holding though, and she looks so betrayed to see it that Ben can’t help but laugh again.

“You really are getting better, Vanya,” he tells her after a few moments. “It’s nice.”

“Thanks, Ben,” she mutters out, sending him a quick grateful grin.

Ben can’t help but smile back — partly because it’s hard not to smile to Vanya when she’s like this, and partly because she used his name.

It’s new and Ben’s still getting used to it, but it makes him feel normal, like he could be more than Number Six, more than the horrors living beyond his stomach.

It’s very nice.

He hopes it’s nice for Vanya too.

Chapter Text

Grace is tidying up Reginald’s office when the phone rings. It is not for her, of course — it never is.

She listens in anyway. If Reginald is calling, it has to be about the children — he would never call about anything else, after all — and if it’s about the children, Grace needs to know.

“How are the children’s training going?” Reginald asks, his voice tiny and distorted by the phone line.

He doesn’t ask after their well-being, the part of Grace that isn’t listening in realizes, and it somehow seems inconceivable to her. He’s their father — doesn’t he want to know how they’re doing? 

All the data Grace can gather seems to indicate he should — it isn’t a hundred percent certainty, because nothing really ever is (and some of the material she’s found seems to indicate some emotional detachment is to be… expected from a father), but it’s close enough that Grace thinks a human would conflate the two.

Grace would ask. She always does, when she doesn’t see the children for a while.

(Was she programmed to do that?

…

The results are inconclusive.)

The part of Grace that is listening in to the phone call hears Pogo reply, “It’s going well.”

His eyes meet Grace as he speaks, and he has to know she’s listening — she’s been dusting that shelf for four-point-seven minutes now, which is two-point-three minutes longer than she needs — and yet, he just stares at her.

Grace is still isn’t good at interpreting his emotions, not like she is with the children, but she thinks he looks… grateful.

He tells Reginald about the children’s classes, and says he’s had them run the usual drills in the mornings.

It’s a lie, of course, but his voice remains steady as he says it, and his only tell, the blinking of his eyes, isn’t something Reginald can see over the phone.

“Mmh,” Reginald says, his voice tiny over the line. It crackles and spits, but even from miles away, he sounds bitterly disappointed, and Grace has to remind her programming to ease her grip on their duster before they break it. 

“Maybe sure the next one is unexpected,” Reginald continues harshly. “We can’t judge their performance accurately in case of a crisis if they only ever respond to expected events.”

Grace almost wants to protest that the children have been tested that way already, several times, and that has never ended well. The last time, not even a month ago, Diego had been startled so badly he’d almost taken out one of Luther’s eyes with his knife, and Ben’s panic had led to much of the training course needing to be replaced.

Grace had needed hours to get the boy to stop flinching and curling in on himself at the sight of his siblings, so worried he had been that he might have hurt them in the Horror’s frenzied attack.

(Truth was, Allison and Klaus had respectively gotten a sprained wrist and a sprained ankle, but they’d somehow unanimously decided to hide it from their brother, instead pretending to have unrelated incidents in the next couple of days that caused these exact wounds.

Grace had happily cooked them their favorite foods and made sure to praise them for being nice to their brother, even as she’d also cautioned them to be more careful.)

Pogo’s eyes bore into hers as he nods and replies, “Of course, sir.”

But as he speaks, he shakes his head, and something inside of Grace’s head… uncoils. Calculations she almost isn’t aware she’d started running fall silent once more, and Grace loses a few seconds to recalibrate.

When she blinks, Pogo’s hanging up the phone, placing it gently back on its receptacle.

Grace studies him for a moment before deciding to speak. “Why did you lie?” she asks.

It is a calculated risk. It reveals much — perhaps too much — of the new pathways built into her programming, but Pogo just lied to Reginald for the children.

He cares for them, she concludes, and she mostly knew that already — her observations had led her to very high estimates indeed — but this is different.

Pogo owes Reginald just as much as she does — he created the both of them, made them into what they are — but Grace has protocols that let her pass as human that Pogo could never use.

He is trapped here, Grace realizes suddenly, the conclusion sharp and bright in her mind, just as much as she is.

“Sir Reginald just told me he won’t be back for another two days,” Pogo replies, evading her question at first with a steady voice. His posture softens. “The children have been working hard lately, they could use some time to rest.”

“Yes,” Grace replies with a bright smile. “Children need their rest to be at their most productive.”

It’s a line straight out of a parenting book she’s had access to, and the only kind of argument Reginald has ever accepted when it comes to postponing or changing the children’s schedules — rare as those times have been.

Pogo smiles at her and nods. “My thoughts exactly, my dear,” he tells her. “Now why don’t you go back to them? They’re out of classes for the day, and could use some supervision, I think.” He nods to Reginald’s office. “I’m sure this place is as spotless as you can make it.”

It isn’t — Grace’s eyes can see dust starting to pile up almost everywhere — but she halts anyway, torn.

She has a schedule. Tasks assigned to her every day that she follows — cleaning, cooking, maintaining the house and taking care of the children — and right now, she is supposed to be cleaning.

But the children are also supposed to be training, and they are not, because Reginald is not.

And… Grace wants to go to them.

(What a strange thing, wanting.)

She sets the feather duster down and nods. When she smiles, she doesn’t have to calculate its angle, she just lets it happen.

“Thank you,” she says. “I think I will pick up my cleaning again later, then.”

Pogo smiles back. “I’m sure you would know best,” he says. His dark eyes stare at her with something she cannot identify. 

He looks tired, though, and Grace automatically suggests he take a break himself to rest.

Pogo snorts in amusement. “Thank you for the concern, my dear, but I shall be fine.” He nods toward Reginald’s desk with pursed lips and sighs. “I have some… matters I should attend to here in Sir Reginald’s absence, anyways.”

Grace blinks, calculating the chances he might change his mind — lower than one-point-seven percent — and nods.

“Well, don’t work yourself too hard, then!” she says cheerfully, and spins on her heels. At this hour of the day, and with weather like this, the children will probably be in the courtyard.

She feels Pogo’s eyes on her back, heavy and tired, until she doesn’t.

That night, when Grace’s feet lead her to her charging station, she doesn’t immediately start to recharge.

She sits down and stares at her paintings instead. It’s something she does occasionally — wondering that the lives of the people painted or who painted them were like is always an interesting thought exercise — and tonight, she prefers that to the quiet of charging, where she is left with only herself and the subroutines checking on her functionality throughout the day.

The children had been rowdy this afternoon.

Rowdy, but happy, Grace judges. They had smiled approximately seventy-two percent more than they had last week, and Grace had heard them all laugh at least once.

(She has the exact counts, of course, but those feel… low, somehow. Children should laugh more often.)

She hears Pogo before she sees him, his footsteps so very distinctive it couldn’t be anyone else, even if the only people in the house weren’t currently children.

“Hi,” she tells him, twisting around to face him.

“Good evening, my dear,” Pogo replies softly. He hovers there, at the edge of what she sometimes calls her room, until she nods at him to come in.

He smiles gratefully — one of the few emotions Grace thinks she can decipher well on his face — and takes a seat next to her. He stares at her paintings for a few moments, and sighs again.

“Shouldn’t you be resting?” he asks her, and something Grace likens to concern shines in his dark eyes. “If your programming is still troubling you, I could —”

“No,” Grace interrupts — and her processors stall at that for an instant, because she’s not supposed to interrupt anyone, especially not when it comes to this, but…

What would happen to the her she is now, if Pogo touched her programming? Would she remain herself? Or would she be lost again, her memories trapped behind walls she erected as the only safety measure she knew?

She can’t let that happen.

(She doesn’t want to let that happen.)

Where would the children be if Grace lost herself? Who would care for them?

“I — My systems are fine,” she says out loud. “I merely wanted to look at the paintings for a while longer.”

Pogo hums and nods, but he doesn’t, Grace notes with what she judges to be something akin to relief, mention touching her programming again.

“It did sound like you had a busy afternoon,” he tells her.

Unbidden, Grace smiles. “Yes. The boys decided they wanted to climb the trees, and it caused some… chaos.”

It’s the best word Grace can think to describe what had devolved into some kind of competition — Five had won according to himself, but everyone else agreed teleportation should count as cheating. Diego had gotten stuck and hacked away half a branch to free himself, while Klaus had taken advantage of the distraction to climb not a tree but the building.

Allison, of course, had stayed behind until Klaus had shouted at her that maybe she was too scared to try, to which she’d replied with a rumor that had made everyone afraid of heights, and Grace had had to convince her to cancel it when it had looked like her siblings were all stuck atop of their respective trees.

Except for Ben and Vanya, who had blessedly decided to stay out of this and referee.

Allison, of course, had been declared winner, but then the boys had wanted to know who was second best, which had restarted the whole thing.

“I saw some of it, I think,” Pogo tells her.

Grace hums back. “You could have joined us.”

Pogo looks away, wringing his hands on his lap. “I told you, I had some work to complete,” Pogo replies, shaking his head. “Next time, maybe.”

Grace nods. “Next time, then.”

They sit there in silence for a while longer before Pogo heaves a long sigh, rests his palms on his knees, and pushes himself up.

“Well, I should turn in,” he says.

Grace blinks. “Ah… before you go,” she starts, pausing to lick her lips in what she’s come to learn is human fashion, “I had a question I wanted to ask you.”

Pogo perks up to attention, his eyes solemn as he stares back at her. “What is it?”

Grace’s thread of reasoning… falters. She tries to calculate the likelihood of success, of Pogo understanding what she wants to know, but every time she runs her calculations, the results come out as wildly different.

She takes a deep breath she doesn’t need, and lets the words fall out of her lips anyway.

“Do you think I’m a good mother?”

Pogo startles. “What — Of course?” He clears his throat and shakes his head. “Of course you are, my dear, why would you believe otherwise?”

(But his eyes are dark and shadowed and he knows why, he has to know why.)

Grace blinks and smiles, the bright smiles she uses to conceal anything else now — they unease people, she knows, but less so than some of her earlier attempts at mimicking human emotions had. “No reason, of course! Just a silly question, that’s all.”

But Pogo’s eyes stay on hers. They dart around the room, and he purses his lips before looking down to the ground.

It isn’t until he starts speaking that Grace realizes he’s hiding his face from the cameras Reginald has wired around the house.

“You know,” he says, “you take care of these children better than anyone else does.”

The bitter tone in his voice tells her he knows he’s included in that, but the words still make Grace’s programming ease it’s frenzied flow into something quieter.

“Oh.” She smiles. “Thank you.”

Pogo huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “No need to thank me for telling you the truth. It’s the least I can do.”

He sighs and nods. “But if that’s all, I believe I should retire to my own quarters now,” he says, and Grace nods back.

“Good night, Pogo,” she says.

Pogo raises his head to smile back at her. “Good night, Grace.”

He leaves and Grace is alone again, and she should recharge now. She feels… Well, she imagines she feels something akin to what humans refer to as tiredness.

Her systems run a little more slowly — calculations that take a fraction of second in the mornings now take several, and while nobody else would notice the difference, not unless they were like her, Grace does.

She knows she’s slowing down, that she needs the energy.

And yet…

And yet, she keeps staring at the paintings, her processors racing around her own question and Pogo’s answering words.

She is a good mother.

She is. The children are happier around her, and she tries to make them safer — as safe and happy as she can make them.

(Her programming never accounted for happiness, but how can they be truly safe and healthy if they are not happy? she reasons, and her code settles and clicks into place.)

She takes care of them better than anyone else, Pogo had said, and it is true. Why would he lie?

But if he’s right, then that means Reginald isn’t taking care of them.

Isn’t protecting them.

Isn’t loving them the way she was made to as their mother, even if they call him Father.

Grace, she deduces, could be doing a better job alone.

...

And maybe she should be.

(Now, she can recharge. She has a feeling she'll need the energy soon.)

Chapter Text

When Grace opens her eyes the next morning, she knows what she is going to do.

It’s all clear and mapped out in her mind, and though some steps are lacking still, part of her is already racing to figure out answers, calculating probabilities and studying the best outcomes possible.

(They look like this:

They all leave, alive, and Grace hides them well enough that Reginald can never find them. Grace raises her children and they are safe, and they are happy.

They laugh every day.)

It is simple, in the end. Sir Hargreeves cannot keep the children safe and happy, but Grace can.

She’s been doing it for a while, now.

She has access to all of Reginald’s properties too — knows their blueprints and can calculate the best routes to get to each one — and to his money, because even if all their food gets delivered, someone still has to place the orders, and Reginald had long since delegated that task to her and Pogo.

It will be easy to make the children disappear. To bring them somewhere where they can be safe. Somewhere away from here.

Grace can see it now, the outline of her plan getting clearer and clearer with every simulation she runs.

It isn’t perfect, not yet, but Grace knows it will never be.

The longer they stay here, the more the children will suffer, and the likelier Grace is to be… found out.

(She doesn’t like to think on those calculations, but she made them anyway — if she stays, there will come a day Reginald will realize she has disobeyed him, and he will make it so she cannot do it any longer.

But if she cannot disobey him, she cannot protect her children, and that is what she was made for.

That is what she wants.)

Grace wakes Allison up first. She usually wakes the children in order, One to Seven, but Allison’s room is closest, and the girl can help her siblings get up.

“Mom?” Allison asks, sleepily raising her head from her pillow. “What’s going on?”

She’s already waking up though, her sharp eyes growing more alert as she takes in Grace’s smile and the early hour.

(It is not quite dawn, since the sun had been up for seventeen minutes and thirty-three seconds, but for a human, that distinction probably wouldn’t matter.)

“Your siblings and I are going on a trip,” Grace replies truthfully, and she is equally proud and saddened when Allison doesn’t question her and instead starts to quickly pack her bag.

“Is Dad coming?” she asks after a while, her shoulders bent over her bag as she zips it close.

Grace stalls.

“Your father isn’t back yet,” she tells her. She smiles, and her hand flexes before gently coming to rest on Allison’s shoulder. 

Inexplicably, Grace is taken by the urge to tell her it’s all going to be okay.

It’s stupid, of course. Even Grace, with all of her predictive algorithms, can only ever predict likely scenarios, and even those get less precise the further down the timeline they are.

And yet… Looking into the worried line of Allison’s face, Grace only wants to reassure her. To lie.

It is… irrational.

Her smile grows wider, and she lets go of Allison’s shoulder. “Come on,” she says. “We can all meet down in the living-room.” Grace runs through her mental map of the house and winces. “Do you think you can wake up some of your brothers?” she asks.

Allison’s back straightens and she nods sharply. “Of course,” she says. She’s still biting at her lower lip, but having something to do seems to help her focus. “I can get Luther,” she says, sure and steady.

“Thank you, Allison,” Grace says. They leave the room together, Allison going one way to Luther’s bedroom, Grace going the other toward the rest of the children.

She wakes up Five next, who takes one good long look at her and frowns. “Are we running away?” he asks, and Grace grins.

He’s always been the most insightful of her children.

“Yes,” she replies, and even though he’d clearly guessed, Five startles in surprise.

His mouth sets into a thin line and he nods. “I see.” She cannot tell what he is thinking — Five is also the more guarded of her children — but he clenches his fists and jumps to the other end of the room, tugging a packed bag from underneath his dresser before jumping back toward her.

She barely has the time to tell him to go downstairs where they’re gathering before he’s jumping there with another flash of blue light, and Grace smiles at the now empty room as she fondly shakes her head.

Kids.

Klaus’ and Vanya’s rooms are empty when she gets there, as is Ben’s — clearly Allison and Luther, or perhaps even Five, roused them from their sleep already.

Diego is still in his room, though, and Grace knocks on his door in the way she knows will wake him up before coming in.

He is as quick as his siblings to get ready, and doesn’t question her — just follows quietly as she leads them out of his bedroom.

They are so close that Grace’s heart would be racing, if it could.

They run into Pogo just as they reach the staircase.

“I cannot stop you, can I?” Pogo asks. His eyes look tired and sad, but Grace clenches her jaw.

“No, you cannot.” She takes a step back, placing herself in front of Diego — Diego who, too brave by half, is alternating between glaring at Pogo and shooting her confused looks while also keeping his clenched fists up high, the way their father taught him to fight.

She sees the moment Pogo sees what she does, and he sighs, his shoulders deflating.

“I see,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment. “Then I believe you will need this.”

Grace tenses as he reaches inside his jacket, but all Pogo does is take out a thick manila envelope.

“Here,” he says, handing it out to her.

Grace’s hand closes around it slowly, and Pogo lets go. It is heavy, and nothing in Grace’s calculations would have predicted this. “What is…” she starts asking, but her hands are already opening the envelope, pulling the papers out.

They’re for the children. Birth certificates, identification papers, passports… And at the end of the pile, there are some for hers, too, declaring her the kids’ mother and sole caretaker.

Grace slides the papers back inside the envelope carefully.

“The children will be needed one day,” Pogo tells her quietly. He doesn’t look at Diego, but Diego’s heard this already anyway — Reginald’s stories of a threat to come only the Umbrella Academy could fight against.

A threat only her children could fight against.

Grace’s hand tightens around the envelope. “They’re not staying here,” she states.

Pogo sighs. “I know. I included Sir’s notes about the children’s abilities — though I believe you know them already, my dear. They will need to be ready for what is to come, but…” And here he pauses to swallow, his eyes darting away as his hands spasm around his cane. “Perhaps the children will be safer with you.”

“Happier,” Grace corrects, forcing a blink. “They’ll be happier with me.”

Pogo smiles. “Yes, that too.” He lets his smile fall. “You really will not reconsider?” he asks. “Master Hargreeves does have the children’s best interests in mind.”

Grace’s calculations, run over and over again, aren’t quite so sure about that — and idly, she thinks maybe Pogo isn’t either, that he’s just trying to convince himself.

“I’m sure he does,” she lies with a wide smile. She pushes Diego a bit further behind her. “But my calculations show that their interests will be better served with me.”

He gave her the children’s paper, Grace reminds herself. He knows she’s right, but that would be for naught if he changes his mind now and tries to stop her.

… Not that Grace would let him. Pogo might not be the type of enemy he and Reginald had programmed her to defend against as a last resort, but Grace will fight him if she has to.

For the children.

Everything she does is for the children.

And on some level, Pogo knows it, because he lets them go.

Unsurprisingly, Luther is the first one to speak up when Grace and Diego finally join them. It brings the whispers from his siblings to a sudden end, as they all focus on Grace and her words, their small fists clenched around whatever bag they’ve packed.

“Gr — Mom,” Luther corrects himself, shoulders squared up like the leader Reginald has always told him he should be, “Allison said you were taking us on a training trip?”

Grace’s eyes flicker to Allison for an instant before returning to Luther. She smiles and nods. “Yes,” she says. “We are going on a… trip.”

“What about Dad?”

"Your father will join us later. You know he's busy."

It’s a lie — the first real one she’s told them (or at least, that she’s chosen to tell them) — and Grace doesn’t like it.

Luther doesn’t look convinced anyway, but Allison elbows him in the side and he falls in line. “Okay,” he says, and something in the vicinity of her chest feels like it’s growing warmer.

Grace checks her subroutines, but there is no trace of any component overheating, so she puts it out of her mind for now.

“This way, children,” she says, grinning widely and reassuringly. “Follow me.”

She leads them toward the door. Pogo had gotten them a truck — she’d found the keys for it amongst the files he gave her, and a quick search had given her the model and make of the vehicle.

It is large enough to hold all the kids plus some luggage, and Grace is unspeakably grateful for it — somehow, though, she thinks Pogo probably knows that already.

They are halfway to the door — in the foyer — when Grace picks up on something. Sound, coming from behind the door. Footsteps.

She doesn’t need calculations to know who those footsteps belong to, and Grace falls still.

“Mom?” Allison asks. She sounds worried, but also like she’s trying not to be, and when Grace looks over at her, she can see that she’s stepped in front of Vanya.

The boys, too, have taken defensive positions — except for Klaus, who is standing beside Vanya, whispering to her with a shaky smile and trying to make her smile.

“It’s alright, children,” Grace says, still smiling. It is another lie, and she dislikes it even more than the first.

She hears Reginald open the door, and it is too late now to get the children back in their beds without being noticed. It had already been too late when she’d first heard him arrive.

His steps are steady and unhurried, and he stops at the entrance of the foyer, looking neither surprised nor unsurprised — just deeply annoyed, like he always does.

“Children,” he says, eyes narrowing and hands curling around his cane, “why are you all out of bed? What is the meaning of this?”

The children stay silent and Reginald bangs him cane against the floor, mouth set into a deeply unhappy line. “Well?” His voice snaps across the room like a whip, and the children flinch.

Unbidden, Grace steps forward, but Luther speaks before she can say anything, “We were going to go on a training exercise.” His eyes flicker toward her, but he doesn’t add anything, only staring at Reginald steadily.

(Only Grace and his siblings can see the way he’s taken to holding his hands behind his back to hide their shaking.)

Reginald snorts disdainfully. “I very much doubt that, Number One. Now —”

Quickly, Allison pushes herself forward, freeing herself from her brothers. “I heard a —”

“Number Three!” Reginald’s voice snaps again through the dark room. “Cease this nonsense this instant!”

Allison’s mouth snaps shut with a click, and she blanches so rapidly she falters, taking a step back.

“I —”

Reginald moves faster than Grace had anticipated, reaching Allison with large, quick steps that Grace falls half a second behind.

But half a second is all the time Reginald needs to raise his hand, his eyes cold and burning.

The children shout but remain frozen, fear keeping them from acting the same way it had kept Allison from following through with the rumor she’d planned on using.

Grace hurries forward, even though she knows she’ll be too late, too slow to stop him from hitting her. And she is right, of course she is — but someone else is faster.

“Her name is Allison,” Luther replies, half-shouting as he shoves Reginald away.

(“Holy shit!” Klaus shouts, immediately getting hushed by his siblings.)

Reginald goes flying backward as Luther pulls a tearful Allison into his arms, and Grace’s eyes follow him as he goes.

Calculating the force and the angle of the throw takes her zero-point-three second, and she already knows the impact will be more than a normal body can bear even before Reginald’s body strikes the floor, his head cracking wetly.

The children jerk backward, Luther blanching terribly, his arms shaking around Allison who only clings tighter to him.

“Is he —?” he starts asking in a whisper, but Reginald interrupts, rasping out Grace’s name.

"Grace," Reginald calls out again, and his voice is weak but yet it is somehow still stern, still angry. "Help me."

And Grace could save him, she knows she could, but... She doesn't want to.

"No," she says. Turning away from him is the easiest choice she has ever made. 

After all, her children need her.