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As it turned out, the most immediate issue upon returning to 2019 wasn’t the Sparrow Academy - it was finding a place to live.
Reginald had kicked them out of the mansion shortly after revealing that in this timeline he had gone out of his way not to adopt them, and to Allison’s surprise, Five didn’t resist. She could see Diego working himself up, but Five had put a hand on his arm in a half calming/half threatening gesture and fixed Reginald with one of his shark smiles. With a We’ll be out of your hair, then he ushered his siblings to the door. Allison didn’t know what his plan was, but figured he had one. And well, he hadn’t gotten them killed so far-
Okay, so technically that wasn’t true. Okay, so he hadn’t gotten this version of them killed.
It was as they communed on the sidewalk that Five brought up the housing situation as first order of business. He pointed out that since none of them were adopted by Reginald, presumably none of them ended up in the same place they originally had, which meant Vanya’s apartment was out, Diego’s boiler room was out, Allison’s LA mansion was out.
Allison knew she was born near Bordeaux. Was she still there? Was there another version of her out there right now, living the life that was taken from her?
And if she was there, did Claire even exist?
Allison had worked so, so hard to push Claire out of her thoughts for these past two years. It had felt so wrong, so callous, so cruel, but when she didn’t have any way back to her daughter, what choice did she have?
Leaving Raymond was one of the most painful decisions of Allison’s life. She loved him like she had loved no one before, and for the first time, he loved her, all on his own with no rumors involved. She meant what she had said to Luther - she couldn’t keep losing people, and god she didn’t want to lose Raymond. But losing him meant keeping her siblings, and maybe, hopefully, getting Claire back. It was a terrible, heart wrenching exchange, but ultimately one she was willing to make.
And now she was back, now she was so close, so much closer than she had dared to dream, but somewhere along the way Allison and her siblings had erased Claire out of existence.
She was caught between wanting to lie down on the sidewalk and staying there forever, and storming back into the mansion to demand that Reginald fix what he’d done.
By the end of the day they ended up in some shitty old warehouse on the outskirts of town that Klaus had gone to a couple raves in a while back. They had outlined plans to look for supplies in the coming days, but for tonight all they had were some blankets that Five had blinked into a closed store to steal.
Now they just needed to get through the night. Five had encouraged them all to get some sleep in that less-than-gentle way of his (“I don’t want to have to cover your sorry asses if you fall asleep standing up tomorrow”), but everyone was too keyed up to go to bed yet. For his part, Five had found some newspapers from god knows where and was poring over them in an attempt to glean whatever information he could about this new timeline. Luther was hovering over his shoulder - Five made an impressive effort not to snap at him when he asked questions.
Silent since they had arrived, Klaus had shuffled off to a corner and slumped down against the wall. Ben leaving had hit him hard; seeing his Sparrow Academy counterpart had set him off even more. Diego had joined him shortly, and was speaking to him in low gentle tones.
Vanya muttered something about fresh air and went outside, hunched in on herself as she walked.
It was pointless for Allison to try to sleep now. She had too many thoughts and no available distractions. And honestly, the boys needed their own time together, and Vanya had spent so many years alone. She left the boys quietly, with a quick wave as she walked past Diego to reassure him. He nodded and turned back to Klaus.
Allison found Vanya perched on the loading dock outside, her legs dangling over the side. “Hey - mind if I join you?”
Vanya turned around, no surprise on her face at all. She must have heard Allison coming. She shook her head minutely. “No, go ahead.”
Allison sat down next to her. She didn’t know what to say. This was the first truly quiet moment they’d had since they got back to 2019, and Allison wanted to savor it. The April chill still hung in the air, intensified now by the dusk. The evening was humid and orange streetlight bounced off puddles in the asphalt. It hadn’t been raining when they got there, and it wasn’t raining now.
Vanya broke the silence, shifting her weight and letting out a pained hiss through her teeth. “You don’t happen to have any ibuprofen, do you?”
“I don’t, sorry.”
Vanya nodded. “Probably for the best. Taking a pill might make me freak out even more.” She smiled as she said it, as if to soften the implications of her statement.
It didn’t work, but Allison appreciated it.
“We can try to get some of the liquid kind,” Allison offered. “I get it for Claire – ”
She cut herself off. The silence was as oppressive as the humidity. She already had so much to stay up tonight worrying about, and all of it paled in comparison to the potential loss of her daughter. It hurt, finding reminders of Claire everywhere, even when she wasn’t looking.
“The liquid kind would be good,” Vanya said. Allison smiled weakly, grateful for the distraction.
“I probably need some too, to be honest.”
“Lila?”
Allison nodded. She wasn’t as unfamiliar with the effects of her rumors as everyone thought she was; for the second or so that it took to say the rumor, she felt a resistible yet powerful urge to carry it out herself. As soon as the rumor took effect, though, the feeling would pass as quickly as it came. And the urge was just that, an urge - she never had to deal with any repercussions.
All this to say, nothing could prepare her for when Lila rumored her.
“She turned my rumor back on myself. Told me to stop breathing. Luther stayed with me until I was able to break the rumor.” The loss of control had been terrifying; no blockage in her throat, no neck injury, just the sheer inability to breathe in. She wanted to apologize right then and there for every single time she’d ever rumored Vanya, her siblings, her first husband, her daughter, but she wasn’t sure how to begin.
She’d do it soon, though. She had to.
Vanya didn’t react with more than a deep sadness in her eyes. Allison didn’t hold it against her. She had emoted more when she was amnesic, but since she got her memories back she’d regained the subdued manner Allison remembered her having their entire lives. Vanya didn’t have much practice with facial expressions, she supposed.
“That sounds awful, I’m sorry.”
Allison waved her hand, far more casual than she felt. “How are you feeling?”
One corner of Vanya’s mouth quirked upward. “I felt shitty enough before Lila threw me against the side of a barn.”
Allison grimaced. “Did getting your memories back...I don’t know, hurt?” Vanya had been holding herself together remarkably well. On the way back to Elliot’s from the FBI building, she had apologized over and over for hurting Allison, her eyes flicking desperately back and forth between Allison’s eyes and her throat, her hand gripping her sister’s arm. But that, along with an equally frantic apology to the whole group for the 2019 apocalypse, was as close as Vanya had come to breaking down. It was an eventuality, Allison knew; she wanted to help Vanya through it once she got there.
But Vanya just looked bemused. “Well, yeah. That kinda came with the territory.”
The answer didn’t seem to fit the question. She was looking at Allison like this should be obvious, and Allison wasn’t sure how to react to that, but she was too tired to argue. “I’m sorry, I guess it would be a lot to take in all at once.”
The crease between Vanya’s eyes deepened, confusion setting in. “Did you...not know why I was at the FBI?”
Allison’s stomach dropped. There was something here she didn’t know. “I – they thought you were a KGB agent, right? I didn’t talk to anyone, I just rumored the front desk to let us up.” A necessary rumor; there was no way they were getting to their sister otherwise.
Vanya drew her legs up, crossing her ankles and hugging her knees to her chest. “They were torturing me for information.”
Oh.
Oh.
Allison’s breath caught in her throat. That’s why Vanya’s powers were going haywire, and that’s why she was going to blow up the FBI building, and was that why Vanya hadn’t been wearing shoes? Allison had thought that was odd at the time, but she didn’t have enough time to ask, didn’t have enough time to ask anything, apparently, because her little sister (and yes, Allison really was her big sister, she was two years older now) had been tortured and she didn’t even know.
Weirdly, Allison thought of Klaus. How Hazel and Cha Cha had kidnapped him, had hurt him. How many times were her siblings going to be tortured without her noticing?
Vanya waited a beat, and Allison’s face must have been stricken because she kept talking, in that rushed but drawling way she did when she didn’t really want to speak but felt like she had to. “It wasn’t for very long, and it did get my memories back, so it wasn’t...you know, it wasn’t too bad.”
“What did they do?” Allison asked, then winced. For a woman whose life depended so heavily on words, for someone who prided herself on her diplomacy, that wasn’t the most tactful question to ask.
Vanya shook her head, far too casual. “They shocked me a bit and dosed me with - I think it was LSD? But I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been drugged,” she added, trying and failing to keep her voice light.
Allison would have scoffed, under different circumstances. Hallucinogens and sedatives were two horses of wildly different colors (and bringing up how she had been consistently drugged by their father for her entire life wasn’t a good way to make Allison worry less). LSD? How did they expect her to answer questions when she was out of her mind? And while being...
“Shocked?” she asked, voice barely louder than a whisper.
Vanya shifted her eyes toward the parking lot, then back to Allison. “...Electrocuted,” she confessed, like it was a shameful admission.
“Holy shit. Vanya, are you okay?” Allison turned her body so she was facing Vanya head-on, sitting cross legged on the loading platform. It felt like a stupid question to ask – of course she wasn’t – but she needed Vanya to know that she cared about her wellbeing.
A sick feeling grew in her chest as Vanya shifted her eyes again, looking at a point somewhere to Allison’s right. Vanya sometimes had problems with eye contact, Allison knew, either giving too much or too little. Especially when she was nervous. Allison knew what Vanya’s answer was going to be even before she spoke.
“I’m fine.”
“Van-”
“Seriously, I’m okay. It’s – I’m okay.” Her protests were undercut by the tremors in her voice, and she had begun to rock back and forth a little where she sat. “It’s not anything worse than what you’ve been through, what any of you have been through.” Allison opened her mouth to respond, but Vanya kept talking. “From when we were kids, or from the Handler, or –” Her voice broke. “Or from me...” Now her voice died out, her chin tucked down to her chest, looking at the dingy concrete beneath her and still not at Allison.
Allison’s eyes widened, the words settling in her chest. That’s what this was about.
She reached out, dusting the back of Vanya’s hand with her fingertips. The touch was light enough that Vanya could reject it if it was unwelcome, but she didn’t; Allison took the invitation to cover Vanya’s hand, which was gripping her knee, with her own. When she spoke, her voice was soft, gentle, but as firm as she could make it. “You know it’s not selfish to be upset that you were hurt, right?”
And with that, Vanya burst into tears.
She pitched forward, shifting her legs around so she could more fully collapse into her sister. At that moment, the sky opened up and began to pour rain in sheets. The roof of the warehouse extended out far enough that they were kept dry, but part of her - the part that wasn’t clutching Vanya to her chest, holding her as she cried, stroking her hair - found the timing odd. The night had been clear seconds ago. But - hadn’t it been raining when Allison drove to Leonard’s cabin that night, the night Vanya killed those men? And wasn’t it snowing at Sissy’s farm when Harlan lost control?
That explained the puddles from earlier, then. Vanya was so small that she was swallowed by Allison’s arms, her frame so slight that Allison could feel every shiver that wracked through her. Even after all this time, after two apocalypses and a cut throat and a field of dead assassins, it was hard to reconcile the raw strength of Vanya’s power with her tiny sister. (From what she had said, it sounded like Vanya had the same problem.)
Vanya had the back of Allison’s shirt in a death grip. “I was so scared,” she choked out. “I woke up and they had me in this chair. And they –” She hissed, squeezing her sister tighter. “And the drugs – oh god it was terrifying – how does Klaus do that, I never want to do that again.” She sobbed. “I never want to do that again.”
“You won’t,” Allison almost-whispered, rocking back and forth with Vanya. “You won’t.” It was dangerous to make a promise like that. As clichéd as it sounded, the only certainty in their lives was the promise of uncertainty. But Vanya needed to hear it, and Allison would do everything in her power to keep this promise.
“I saw – I was back in the academy, and you were all there, and you hated me, and Dad was yelling at me – and there were these eyes everywhere, watching me, and I didn’t know what they wanted from me, I felt like I was dying.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. Her words were tripping over themselves, her voice so rambling and choked with tears it was nearly incoherent. “And they kept shocking me – I think my powers protected me from the worst of it but I’ve felt like I’m on fire ever since, and I keep twitching, and I don’t know if that’s normal or if they caused permanent damage, I just don’t fucking know.” Her voice had been building in volume, fear and pain and anger fueling her words, but then it collapsed in on itself and her next words came out as a strangled whisper. “I didn’t even have anything to tell them.”
Growing up in the Umbrella Academy, and then being a mother, Allison knew that sometimes words weren’t enough. There was nothing profound she could say to fix the pain Vanya felt. For now the best she could do was be there, hug Vanya as tightly as Vanya was hugging her and whisper things like “It’ll be okay” and “I know, I’ve got you, I’m here now.” To offer comfort with her presence and be there for her.
(Once, when they were teenagers, Allison found Vanya crying. It was during their Saturday half hour of free time, and Allison had made a mad dash to her room because Klaus, that asshole, had waited until they only had twenty-one minutes left to ask if they could paint their nails together. She was about to head back up the stairs, bottle in hand, when she heard a noise to her right. And there, sitting in a ball on her bed in her closet of a room, was Vanya. They shared a few seconds of eye contact that lasted an eternity – Allison’s eyes wide with surprise, Vanya’s wide with terror. Tears streamed down her sister’s cheeks; the fragile silence was broken by Vanya sniffling.
And it wasn’t that Allison didn’t care, it really wasn’t, but – well, she only had nineteen minutes of free time left, and she was really looking forward to Klaus painting her nails, and what did Vanya have to cry about anyway, she didn’t go on missions, she didn’t do training, it couldn’t be that bad.
She broke off the eye contact and ran back upstairs, telling herself she’d ask Vanya about it later. She never did. Vanya never brought it up.)
The rain had stopped, which was a good sign. At some point Allison had started crying too; her tears fell down her cheeks and onto Vanya’s head, which Vanya didn’t seem to notice but Allison felt distantly bad about anyway. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d come outside, but it felt like hours.
Allison shushed softly again, a sound she had made to comfort Claire when she was an infant and would hopefully work on her grown adult sister. “I’m sorry, we didn’t know,” she whispered. Vanya, who had been growing more and more relaxed in Allison’s embrace, stiffened again, and pulled back for the first time.
By the dim industrial light of the street lamps, Allison could see how red Vanya’s face was. Vanya used her sleeve to wipe the tears off her face as best she could before speaking. Her other hand held onto Allison’s. “I’m sorry.”
Allison blinked, caught entirely off guard. “Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for?”
Vanya looked down at her lap. She dug the fingers of her free hand into the black denim covering her knee. Every word sounded like it was being pulled out of her. “I just...I assumed the worst of you all, again.” She snorted softly, a mirthless laugh. “I thought because you all knew I was at the FBI, you knew what was happening, and weren’t asking about it because, I don’t know, you didn’t care, I guess?” She shook her head, as if to rattle the thought out of her brain. “I shouldn’t have dismissed you all like that, I’m sorry.” Her fingers tensed even more on her knee, and Allison softly grabbed it before she could hurt herself, even with her bitten-down fingernails.
“Vanya, it’s okay, I understand. I would have felt the same way if it had been me.”
But Vanya was shaking her head again. “No, not just for this. I’m sorry for – for dismissing you all like that.” She stressed the last five words.
And here’s the thing. As good as Vanya was with the written word, she was awkward and stilted in spoken conversation. And Allison knew that, and Vanya knew that Allison knew that. So she knew that this apology was for the book, was for the way she had lashed out at Allison every time Allison had talked to her about Leonard, was for every time Vanya had assumed that her siblings’ default state of mind was wanting her hurt.
And that meant a lot. It wasn’t perfect, but god it was a step forward. They were all learning.
With both of her sister’s hands in her own, she smiled tightly, and nodded.
Vanya smiled back, meeting Allison’s eyes with a look that was raw and loving and so, so vulnerable.
It was broken when Vanya shuddered again, ducking her head and squeezing her eyes shut. Her right hand spasmed in Allison’s grip. “I’m – god, I’m still so scared. And it still hurts so much.”
Allison disentangled her left hand from Vanya’s and used it to brush hair back from her sister’s face. She knew that pain, had felt it mission after mission as a kid. At the time it had pissed her off that Vanya had never experienced it; seeing it now broke her heart. Yeah, they were all learning.
She stood up, gently helping Vanya to do the same. “I’ll stay with you tonight, I promise. And I’m sure Five’s still up, the little insomniac – we can tell him to get some liquid ibuprofen, I think there’s a convenience store nearby.”
Vanya made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a sniffle. “He’ll love that.”
“Oh he’ll do it. Maybe he wouldn’t for the rest of us, but he will for you.”
Vanya smiled wryly. “I knew letting him talk to me for hours about quantum physics when we were ten would pay off eventually,” she deadpanned.
Seriousness crept back into her face. “Allison...thank you. Seriously. I really appreciate it.”
Allison looped her arm through Vanya’s. “Of course. I’m going to break down in a day or two, anyway - you can make it up to me then,” she added with a wink.
Vanya laughed. “It would be my honor.”
They went back inside the warehouse. Five agreed like Allison knew he would. Nobody was asleep yet, and they wouldn’t be for hours, but they had blankets and ibuprofen and the contented silence that settled in between them all. They had the comforting pressure of the night’s humidity and the ambient sounds of cars outside and the waxing crescent of the moon they could see through gaps in the graffiti of the high warehouse windows. For just this night, they had a moment of serenity.