Chapter Text
It’s funny because she’s been so proud of herself; learning to be a human and reconnecting properly with her siblings and discovering new interests (kicking stuff is an interest, shut up) that it never occurred to her that… fuck.
She’s been a selfish sack of shit this whole time.
“Mommy, when are you coming to visit?” Claire’s voice echoes over the phone, and Allison kind of wishes she were anywhere else.
“I-” she trails off, because she can’t say ‘the thought gives me an anxiety attack’ or ‘but aren’t you happy with your Dad now? He sure as hell doesn’t want me near you’ or even ‘you coped without me for months at a time before… I sort of hoped you would forget’.
She spent nearly ten months with the human at the other end of the line inside of her. The relationship with her father was a lie. Allison was a lie. Allison thinks now that she was somebody who was made from broken pieces, somebody who was practically childish themselves trying desperately to make the kind of life she’d seen on TV – husband, child, picket fence. She looks back, now, and wants to protect herself, wants to go back and get rid of everybody who ever hurt her as though it happened to somebody else. She’s on hiatus from acting, on hiatus from stupid fucking therapy because Patrick ran away to France with Claire so what’s the point. In the process she has kind of become her own priority and it’s been so alien that she may have forgotten.
She’s meant to be a mother. She’s been one for years. It’s suddenly terrifying all over again.
Diego stands opposite her while she uses the apartment’s phone, slumped against the wall, arms folded.
He understands, she thinks. He would understand. She feels like absolute shit.
“Baby,” she starts, immediately capitulating. “I’ll book a flight. I’ll come visit. Let me talk to Daddy.”
“Okay!” Claire says, bright. “He’s here, Daddy Mom is coming to stay and we can have croissants and visit Lake Geneva and she can ride a bike down the Pleney.”
While the phone rustles, Allison turns her face to the wall and reaches out for her brothers hand. He holds on, and she’s grateful.
“Allison,” Patrick’s clipped tone comes through. “What are you doing.”
“You heard her,” Allison all but pleads. “What am I supposed to do? My kid wants me to visit.”
“Mmhmm,” Patrick says. “Claire would you grab that for me? No the – yeah, you know. In the study.” A beat. “What the hell are you playing at? Now she thinks you’re coming to stay and you and I both know that’s not going to happen. Who has to pick up the pieces, Allison?”
“Patrick,” she starts, and Diego is there and she just holds on.
“No,” he says. “I let you have these phone calls. You don’t see the aftermath. It upsets her. She wets the bed.”
“She...” Allison trails off.
“Every time near enough,” Patrick bites out. “Oh hey sweetheart! Thank you.” She hears Claire in the background again. “Want to say goodbye to Mom? Then we can go out for pancakes.”
“Okay,” Claire says, distant, and then she has the handset. “Bye Mom!” She says. “Love you!”
“I love you too, baby,” Allison says, feeling distant and shock-like. “Be good for your Dad.” She hangs up before she can get a response to that.
“You okay?” Diego asks, after a long minute where she kind of starts crying against the wall.
“No, dumb shit,” she snaps at him, but he just sighs and puts a hand on her shoulder.
“What do you need?” He asks, because they’re better, they’re learning, Allison is starting to feel like they’re cushioning something over the wreck of their childhood – and it’s not really good enough, but she can’t find out who she is and be reduced to ‘Mom’ at the same time. She never got a real identity the first time around. ‘Mom’ was another attempt to escape. She can’t do this.
“I heard a rumor that your problems went away and you were magically better,” Diego drawls, glib, and despite herself she laughs wetly at the wall.
“Prick,” she tells him.
“Yup,” he agrees.
“So I was thinking about going to France,” she tells Klaus, later that evening, and she really should not be telling Klaus any of this because unlike Diego he wears his trauma on his sleeve and, she’s learned, can’t compartmentalize for shit. But she’s selfish.
“Oh la la,” Klaus responds, looking up at her from the couch. “For ma petite niece?”
Allison shrugs, still unhappy about the phone call.
“And le connard?” Klaus adds with a wink, and Allison doesn’t know what that means.
“Do you think I should?” She asks, and dear God she has gotten weak. Time was she would have had the confidence and done anything she wanted. Now – now, urgh. Working through her shit, even just by herself, without a therapist – but at least she’s being honest about things this time – is awful. She can’t deal with the most mundane things. Making decisions isn’t the half of it.
“Do you want to?” Klaus says, lifting his head up to balance it on his elbow. “Seems like a simple problem.”
“It does,” Allison agrees, and then says, a little abrupt maybe, “I’m going out for a bit,” and picks up her training bag and heads to purge these damned emotions at the therapeutic space that is the dirty, messy, judgement free gym.
“You wanna talk about it?” Diego says, while she’s holding a bag for him while he practices his two step moves. He doesn’t sound like he wants to talk about it, so it’s a nice gesture, she thinks.
The gym is fairly empty. Her brother had been doing a met-con before she turned up, and Allison’s life is such now that she knows what the heck that even is. He’d finished and asked her to spot a bag.
The rhythmic thudding is grounding.
“God, no,” Allison sighs, glad that they aren’t even really looking at each other as they talk.
“Gonna call Luther or something then?” He says, landing one slightly askew, wobbling, correcting himself.
“No?” Allison says, confused. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, with me,” Diego says, and he’s definitely not looking at her now. “You should talk about it with someone though. Seems like a big deal.”
Allison drops the bag, which makes him stumble, which makes him kick out at her in annoyance. “What the hell?” He grumbles.
“I talk to you,” she tells him, unreasonably pissed off. “I talk to you about all kinds of shit. I talk to you about shit I don’t want to put on Klaus. I’ve told you shit I’ve never told anybody else.”
“Alright,” he’s holding his hands up now, looking slightly wary. “Just asking, Jesus.”
“You think I actually want to talk to somebody about what a crappy Mother I am?” She continues, genuinely angry now. “How unfair it is – do you know what being pregnant is like? What birth is like? Didn’t I do enough? You know I still have nightmares-” she cuts herself off abruptly, steps back a few paces. Diego looks downright alarmed.
“You never talk about it,” he says, after a minute. “I just think…” He stops.
“What?” Allison bites out.
“Maybe you should.”
“Nobody else does. Why do I have to?”
Surprise, surprise. Allison has nightmares that night. About giving birth. Except she’s not giving birth to Claire, this time, she’s giving birth to a strange, vaguely alien version of Patrick. And the doctors aren’t listening to her, and the midwife is shoving her hand inside her, and she feels so out of control that she can’t speak, because Vanya cut her throat, remember, and it’s a nightmare, it’s a nightmare, it’s-
When she wakes up, she’s soaked through with sweat. The covers are drenched.
Allison strips and heads to the closet where she pulls out the first things she finds that feel like clothes. Then she strips the comforter back. Then she leaves the room and peeks in on where Diego is usually not sleeping, at night anyway, – except, fuck, tonight he is.
Oh well.
They’re siblings again, now. And her sheets are currently disgusting.
Allison slides into bed next to her brother.
She wakes up on her own. She feels disgusting, sticky and gross and stinky. She stays in Diego’s bed anyway, even though she’s distantly ashamed of what he’ll think.
Around mid morning, she drags herself out. As she opens the door she sees Klaus’ curly mop pop up from the couch, and he looks at her and then abruptly looks away. She can’t tell what his expression means, because he’s decidedly ignoring her. His neck is tense.
Allison feels too disgusting to go after Klaus right now, she can’t help him when she feels like this. She heads for the shower.
She calls Vanya around lunch.
“Hey,” her sister says. “Sorry, I have a student coming over in ten -”
“Oh,” Allison says, immediately, “no, it’s okay. It’s not important,” as her stomach sinks a little. “Just wondered if you wanted to do lunch or something, sometime.”
“Yeah absolutely,” Vanya tells her, and they hedge around nothing for a minute and then Vanya has to go. Allison leans her head against the wall once she’s hung up.
She thinks about writing to Claire, instead. It seems like it might be a better idea than calling if she’s upsetting her so much. Then again, Claire didn’t sound upset on the phone. Allison doesn’t have anybody else to ask about it to confirm or deny; it’s not like Patrick’s parents would speak to her. He has a sister in a nearby village who has kids who must see Claire but – Allison never met her. Never found the time to go to Les Gets. Never deigned to meet Patrick’s French family, let alone make friends. Hell, she barely had time for her own daughter some months.
It should have been a red flag. In hindsight, everything should have been a red flag.
The bad press had died down after a while, like Vanya had said it would. Allison and her management team worked out a lay-low hiatus plan, and some fresh new faces had come to the agency in the mean time and she wasn’t quite redundant yet but she still wasn’t causing anywhere near the level of drama to engage the tabloids any more, which was a good balance. It meant no press but also no panic about press. With their father’s inheritance besides she doesn’t actually need to work again, even after the divorce settlement and the voluntary ongoing child support.
And balancing that with splitting the cost of living with two brothers – even their three bed apartment isn’t making a dent.
And it’s not like any of them ever splash out on anything.
Speaking of. Plane tickets are expensive.
“Hey Klaus,” she tries, as he disappears around a corner into his room.
“Hum?” He says, half way through the door, not looking at her.
“Would you… would you ever want to go to France?” She says, not sure why she does. To her surprise, he snorts.
“Family holiday?” He says, and she frowns because it sounds a little bitter and not really like him.
“Sure,” she tries, light, figuring maybe he’s just in a bad mood.
“Maybe.” He says, flat. He looks like he’s going to say something else for a second, and then disappears into his bedroom, pulling the door closed.
It’s not like him at all, but everybody has bad days. Allison knows. They’re working through things. Shaking up their own fragile little heads. She can give him space.
She takes a cab over to the academy, thinking about Grace for some reason. When she gets to the door, she’s greeted by Five who has a drink in his hand and a sour expression on his face.
“Oh,” he says, sounding glum. “Thought you were somebody else.”
“Are you drunk?” Allison asks him.
“Yes,” he responds, grumpy, already walking away.
“What’s up?” She calls, but he just ignores her and wanders off. Allison shrugs it off, goes in search of Luther.
She finds him outside underneath the big oak tree, sitting with his legs crossed. He looks sort of peaceful. She feels almost bad for intruding.
Not bad enough not to approach, though, and she kind of stomps through the grass as she comes towards him in the hopes that he’ll hear and she won’t have to call out.
He does. Luther opens his eyes, looks at her. He looks happy to see her, like always. “Allison,” he says. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she tells him. “Mind if I join you?”
“Oh.” He looks surprised for some reason. “Sure.”
She sits cross legged at his side. “What are you up to?” She asks.
For some reason he looks a little shifty. Then he looks down. Then she understands why, when he says, “sometimes I come out here and think about talking to Dad.”
Allison blinks at him.
“Don’t, uh.” Luther looks away. “Don’t tell anyone. Please. I know that not everybody would understand.”
“I, uh.” Allison blinks. “I’m not sure I do?”
“I miss him,” Luther says, simply. “I mean. I have so many questions that I wish I could have asked him, and now I can’t and I just. Find it helpful to imagine talking to him.”
“Is this...” Allison looks around. “Is this ‘the spot’? Under the tree? You mentioned at his… uh, funeral?”
“He liked it out here,” Luther confirms, sad. “He would stand out here and just look out across the view. It seemed to help him make big decisions.”
“It’s okay that you miss him,” Allison blurts. “He was. More your father than mine towards the end. I think.”
“No he wasn’t,” Luther argues, frowning. “He’s… it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t speak to him. Or agree with him. He was still all of our father.”
“Luther,” Allison begins, carefully now. “It’s not… that I didn’t agree with him. Well,” she amends. “I mean, it was. But not… you’re making it sound like a difference of opinion. Not like it… like it actually was.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Luther says, and he’s not doing it on purpose, she knows, he’s just genuinely not getting what she means.
“Alright,” Allison tries, and thinks of Claire, and feels a little sick and abruptly realizes why it’s so important that they actually have this conversation for once. “So Dad never made you feel like. Like you were in physical danger,” she decides to start with, because it’s easy.
“Um,” Luther frowns. “We used to fight criminals. Our whole lives were about being in physical danger.”
“No, that’s not.” Allison breathes out. “Physical danger at home, I mean.”
“What like… are you talking about training?”
“Yeah, I guess. Not everybody had the same ‘training’,” she says, still being very very careful.
“I know I – look, what does this have to do with anything? Why do you want to talk about that?” Luther says suddenly, and his jaw is tight and he’s looking away from her and okay, maybe this isn’t straightforward at all and she is in no way qualified to get into this. She doesn’t know what it will mean for Luther, either, and that’s a foreign thought. Time was, she thought she would be able to guess anything about him.
“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Allison backtracks. “If sitting out here thinking about him brings you peace then I wish you well with it. For as long as you want to do it.” She thinks of Diego, abruptly, if it’d been him in her place trying to have this conversation. They would have been hitting each other by now. “Do you want to come over some time?” She changes tack, instead. “For dinner? Or just… to hang?”
For some reason he looks surprised. “With… all of you?” He says, and Allison thinks, for fucks sake.
“Yes,” she confirms, smiling. “The guys miss you. You should spend time together.”
“Okay,” he says, and then she doesn’t know what she wants to say and Luther shuts his eyes again and she just watches him, thinks about how they all have their own shit that they aren’t sharing. They sit in companionable silence.
Dinner back at the apartment that evening is subdued. Klaus seems off, still, picking at his food and not really talking. Diego kicks him once under the table to try and engage with him, and then gives up. Klaus disappears into his bedroom before they can talk about what to do after the food is gone.
“Should we worry?” Allison says, finishing her food, looking at his closed door. Diego shrugs.
Luther stops by a week or so later, and Allison’s been at the gym and the laundromat mostly and has to speed clean the apartment a half hour before he turns up. It’s something else, not having a cleaner. Diego and Klaus don’t seem to see dirt or mess and it’s usually her that ends up doing a half-arsed job of it. Consequently, most of the high surfaces are covered in dust at this point. Allison guiltily toys with the idea of asking Grace to stop by.
“Hey,” Luther says, bringing in a bag.
“Hey,” she tells him.
“What’s up, man,” Diego waves en route to the shower, having taken his sweet time unpacking his gym stuff while Allison threw the dirty socks that seemed to gravitate to the couch into the hamper, and stacked the dishwasher with all the random crockery lying around.
“Are you showering now?” She calls after him.
“Yup,” he informs her, closing the door.
“Okay, I guess we can wait a little bit later to order. It’s not like Klaus is here anyway.”
Luther unpacks his bag into the fridge. There is a clink of glass as he tries to move stuff around. “You guys have a lot of food,” he says, sounding almost surprised.
“Yeah, Diego eats,” Allison tells him, because boy does he ever. Klaus picks, Allison watches her portion sizes and tries to stay away from the snacks. Diego follows a plan. It’s the most organised she’s ever seen him about anything, ever. “He started on this six meals a day thing about a month after we moved in here.”
“His shirts are gonna stop fitting him if he carries on like that,” Luther mutters, closing the door. Allison blinks.
“He trains pretty hard,” she says, lightly, just as the front door opens.
“Oh, shit, hi,” Klaus says, waving at them, “are we doing a thing?” He throws his shoes haphazardly across the welcome mat and his coat and bag end up in a pile a couple of feet further in.
“Yeah, take out night remember?” Allison says, carefully, because he hasn’t really been as friendly as usual towards her since… she’s not sure. It hasn’t been that long. They’ve been busy. He’s probably fine.
“Alrighty,” Klaus claps, jovial, and it’s okay, he seems fine. “Let me go change!”
And Allison rolls her eyes as another brother disappears behind a closed door.
“Drink?” Luther says, seeming unconcerned, gesturing to the bottles he’d unloaded into the fridge.
Diego is done in around fifteen minutes and comes out of the bathroom fully dressed and toweling off his hair. He throws the wet towel over the back of the couch when he’s done. Allison tries to stare at him in a scolding manner, but he seems more preoccupied with Luther, who is trying to hand him a beer.
“Why would you bring that over?” Diego says. “Could you not?”
“What? It’s just beer,” Luther says, confused, and it clicks for Allison and she looks guiltily at the open bottle in her own hand.
“And your brother’s just an addict,” Diego tells him, rather coldly, and slams the fridge door open to grab one of his zero carb sodas.
“Klaus? He’s been to rehab, he’s done with that,” Luther frowns at him, like Diego has said something offensive.
“Right because that magically cures him of his substance abuse issues,” Diego folds his arms now, looks Luther in the eye. “You’re testing him, man. That shit’s not fair.”
“What are you talking about?” Luther says, as Klaus walks out of his bedroom and ignores the conversation entirely.
Allison finishes her own bottle swiftly and makes for the recycling box.
“Klaus, do you want a beer?” Luther says, staring directly at Diego.
Klaus, seemingly oblivious to the argument around him, just shrugs. “Beer not really my thing,” he says. “Next time bring something classy. Like a reisling. Or schnapps.”
“You’re such a dick,” Diego directs to Luther, and Allison snaps,
“Guys. Look at the take out menu. Please.”
They order Indian with no further issues. It’s actually fairly pleasant once Diego has stopped side eyeing Luther’s beer. Allison kind of wants another, is enjoying the relaxing effects it’s having, but she won’t now. Besides, the food is good.
It’s all smooth sailing and they end up migrating to the TV afterwards where there’s a TV movie starting, and it seems normal and domestic and Allison thinks, this is it, this is nice, this is what I wanted.
The movie unfortunately turns out to have been a terrible idea. The criminal mastermind was an abused child who gets sympathy from the law abiding protagonist but is still a tragic failure of a person, and better yet they have a kid who they are repeating the same pattern of abuse with. Allison wants to turn it off almost immediately on catching on to the plot. The guys don’t seem to think anything about what’s on screen is upsetting or weird, though, so she leaves it.
At one point, somebody gives birth in a flashback, and it’s terribly unrealistic but Diego, for some god only known to him reason, says, “why do women on TV always scream their heads off when they’re giving birth?” and then looks at her and says, “did you scream your head off when you were giving birth?” And then his eyes widen at her expression.
“Yes,” Allison tells him, glad to have an excuse to look away from the movie. “I screamed the place down.”
“Diego,” Klaus scolds, from where he’s ensconced on the floor. “Fancy asking a lady if they screamed their head off giving birth. I imagine it was awful. I wouldn’t want a grapefruit coming out of my nethers, or whatever they say the equivalent is for the men folk.”
“Is it that bad?” Luther says, looking unduly concerned.
“It was the single most traumatic event I’ve ever experienced. Thanks for asking,” Allison says, shortly, because – her brothers. Wow.
“The most? Like, ever?” That seams to have piqued Klaus’ interest though. “I mean, over and above all the things from our tragic childhoods?”
Luther snorts.
“Pretty much,” Allison says, as Diego says,
“What was that for?” to Luther.
“What?” Luther says. “Nothing.”
“Giving birth was worse than anything Reg could come up with. Wow,” Klaus seems to marvel.
“Really,” Diego says to Luther, flat.
“How does the human race propagate? Women are unsung heroes! You deserve medals just for being ladies, Jesus Christ,” Klaus continues, tipping his head back at her, and she feels a pang. She’s missed him. He’s been so distant for the past week or so, and she’s really, really missed him. She smiles at his upside down face.
“Do you have a problem?” Luther says to Diego, and Allison abruptly sits back up.
“Yeah,” Diego nods, calmly. “Stop belittling the child abuse.”
Everybody is abruptly quiet. Allison feels like her jaw snaps shut, even though she wasn’t speaking.
“Ooooookay,” Klaus is saying, getting up. “I’m going to just. Be. Um.” And he retreats, and Allison watches him shut his bedroom door, and the movie is still playing, and that went bad. Fast. Jesus. Christ.
“Can you not be so dramatic?” Luther says, staring after Klaus. “What’s – you know what? Never mind.”
“Who’s being dramatic?” Diego asks, fully focused on his brother now.
“’Child abuse’? Come on,” Luther says, and Allison wants to scream danger, Will Robinson, because that’s a reference that she knows Diego will get and she will get and Luther will get, and oh God. She can’t say anything. She’s paralyzed.
“Child. Abuse. What the fuck else do you call it?” Diego asks, too calm – how is he so calm? He looks like a cat again, Allison thinks. He’s about to do something really fucking cruel if she doesn’t butt in.
“Don’t say that – Dad did his best,” Luther starts, and she can’t.
“Luther,” Allison says, quickly. “Don’t.”
His head swivels to look at her. “Right,” he says, after a moment. Then he takes a breath and looks straight ahead and says, “I just think you’re being pretty ungrateful.”
Diego just stares at him in her periphery.
Luther says, “Because of Dad you and me and all of us can do whatever we want now. We don’t have to get jobs or worry about money or any of that stuff. You can just do what you want and pretend you’re independent and hate Dad because yeah, okay, he was such a monster, but you’re still living off of him even though he’s dead. He built us a legacy. So what if he didn’t want to say goodnight a few times. He was busy. Making shit for us.”
Allison looks at her other brother and – Diego does not look great. Diego looks – he looks grey, like his skin is losing color.
“Diego,” she says, low, and he turns his head maybe too fast, but she needs to do something now, she should have done something before they started watching the fucking movie.
“I’m done,” he says, before she can think about what to say, and he’s up, he’s going to his room, and he’s closing the door behind him. Allison hears a thud, like he’s sat back against it to keep it shut.
“Luther,” she tries.
“Don’t bother,” Luther says, suddenly. “I can’t do anything right. I don’t look right, I can’t talk right. I’m not in your little ‘Dad sucks’ club because I’m not doing that right either.”
“What’s gotten into you? And – Luther, he was awful to them,” Allison bites out, absently thinks, coward, why can’t you say ‘us’?
“He sent me on a mission that nearly killed me and then destroyed my body and left me on the moon for four years because he didn’t want to look at it,” Luther snaps right back. “I’m just the only one who isn’t lying to myself about the privilege and the house and the money. You still want that even if you want to talk about how mean and nasty he was.”
“Luther,” Allison says, and then she has absolutely no idea what to say.
“No,” Luther stops her short. “Have fun playing at being victims.” And he gets up, and he leaves, and Allison is left on the couch and the fucking movie is still fucking playing. She wants to throw the controller at the screen. She doesn’t. She turns it off, pads over to Klaus’ bedroom, knocks. Gets no answer. Goes to Diego’s door. Knocks. Gets no answer.
Goes to her own bedroom. Fishes a bottle of mezcal out from underneath the bed, where she’s been saving it for – she has no idea, to be honest, and her subconscious knew to keep it out of the kitchen and away from Klaus so why the fuck didn’t she? Why didn’t she?
It tastes awful, but she’s not a drinker, and two pulls are all she needs to just lie down and hope everything goes away.
The morning feels a little better, she thinks. The bottle of mezcal sits on her nightstand, nearly full, and she sighs.
Shower, routine. Allison eats. Klaus’ door is open. He’s gone out. Diego’s is not. He might still have gone out.
Allison hits the gym.
She comes home and finds her brother on the couch, half empty bottle of mezcal in his hand.
It’s really not the brother she would have called it on. Klaus’ bedroom is still open and empty.
“Di,” she says, because it feels like a short name kind of situation. “Hey. You’re drinking? It’s four in the afternoon. What’s going on?”
He’s scrunched up in one corner, leans into her hands where she accidentally touched his face.
“Did I imagine it?” He slurs. “Did I imagine all the things he did?”
“No, baby,” Allison says, alarmed. “No, no, is that what you’ve been thinking?”
“If I did then. I don’t know. Stupid.”
“You didn’t imagine shit, okay? You need some water. Hey, you don’t drink. Put that down.”
“But I want to go away,” Diego says, which is simple enough.
“You’re stronger than that,” she tells him, honestly. “It’s hard right now. What got you so bad, huh? You don’t have to tell me.”
“Did he ever used to put things in you?” Diego says, and Allison feels cold, feels her heart like it’s going to beat out of her chest suddenly, as Diego continues, “anywhere I mean, your mouth… anywhere else, just to see how you worked? I think.” He looks down at the bottle he’s holding. “Fuck,” he says.
Allison can’t move or breathe for a second, and she abruptly feels like she’s on fire with grief and heartbreak and something else that she doesn’t know the name for. And then she finds herself taking the mezcal, taking a big swig. It burns.
“Come to bed,” she gasps after the drink has gone down. “Come to bed. Everything will be okay.”
“Never is,” Diego says, and she takes another huge swig, as much as she can bear, and gets to her feet to pull him up before it hits her system.
“Bed,” she says. “We’ll be okay.” She hopes, very much, that it’s true.
So she hits Diego’s bed with Diego. She wants to check on him, make sure he doesn’t puke. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him drink before, and he obviously has no tolerance to speak of.
He’s snuffling before she’s got a handle on the covers, moves clumsily to get underneath them. As soon as his face is in a pillow he appears to be out for the night. It’s not even dinner time. Allison wonders if she should have put him in the recovery position.
She drifts off on top of the covers. When she wakes up, it’s because the front door is closing. There’s no light coming through the curtains.
The smell of the mezcal on the bedside table makes guilt drift to the surface and she moves it to the floor.
Was Luther right? That was the question. He hadn’t been lying, she can’t imagine how hard it must have been on the moon, alone, for four miserable years – people in prison aren’t allowed to be left in solitary for anything nearing that, and they didn’t have imminent death hovering over them if they forgot part of their maintenance routine or their cell failed or –
Fuck. Luther has every right to feel how he wants, she knows.
But why does she feel so fucking guilty about everything he’s said?
She pulls the mezcal back up and takes a couple more pulls. Just this once. She wants to go to sleep.
At some point Allison realizes she did fall asleep, because it’s late morning. Her mouth is so dry. She’s been in bed more than fourteen hours. Diego is still asleep. Except, he isn’t, not really.
“Hey,” she tries. “How are you feeling?”
He stays where he is, eyelids heavy looking. He somehow looks too tired to be awake.
“How are you doing?” She tries again, but he just shuts his eyes.
“I’ll get you some water,” she tells him, not sure what else to do. She uses the bathroom and comes back with water and a pre-prepared meal from the stack in the fridge. Just greens. Light. Like he eats in the morning.
She gets no reaction out of him.
“Okay,” Allison says. “I’ll leave you. For a bit. If you want to get up there’s food. Just let me know.”
No response.
Klaus gives her a strange look the next morning when she walks back into Diego’s bedroom again, with fresh water and a different meal. He hadn’t eaten yesterdays.
She doesn’t want to talk about what Luther said. So she doesn’t say anything.
And life goes on.