i've spent all of the love i've saved { open }

[rumorate]

WHO: Allison Hargreeves + YOU
WHEN: After the Beacon, through their stay at the inn
WHERE: Various.
WHAT: Allison comes back from a canon bump, and she's in not a great place.
WARNINGS: SPOILERS FOR THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, SEASON 3.


[Starters in the comments, ping me @ iluvroadrunner6#1178 or iluvroadrunner6 if you would like something custom made!]

Comments

a broken heart is all that's left | ota

[rumorate]

[Allison opens her eyes, and she immediately knows something is wrong.

She had expected things would be different. She pushed a button to reboot the world. Of course she was going to look up and possibly see a sky she didn’t immediately recognize. But the problem is, in fact, when she opens her eyes and sees the skies of Serithca above her, she recognizes it all too well. She knows exactly where she is, and it isn’t the world where she gets her daughter back.

It’s not the world where she gets Ray back.

And all at once, she’s spiraling again, losing her focus and letting her sense of time and place spin away from her all over again.]

No.

[She scrambles up to her feet, head whipping around as she tries to place exactly where she is. She’s not far from the beacon. Maybe she can get them to power it up again, send her back before it’s too late and she can get back to the life she was promised.

By the time she gets there, Karsa is gone (for the best), but Allison can be seen getting into a fight with some poor NPC, trying to explain to Allison that the magic is spent and that there’s no turning it back on. With each denial, Allison’s voice rises higher and higher, that bubble of anger bursting until her eyes glow gold as she shouts the command.]

Get out of my way!

[The poor NPC’s eyes go white as Allison’s power washes over them, and immediately they step to the side. Allison then returns to the beacon, trying to figure out of she can turn it on herself. She looks as though she’s gone completely feral, dried blood on the corner of her mouth, a more extensive wound on her left arm, tied off with what looks like a t-shirt. Eventually the desperation turns to frustration turns to defeat, and the anger is unable to sustain her further. She steps back, and just screams into the distance.

And when that’s done, she has nothing left to do but cry.]

[littlemimic]

[ One look, that's all it takes for Lila to know what is happening. Allison has spun out completely. She doesn't quite know where the other woman comes from, whether it's somewhere in that week of fuckery or on the other side of the reboot. Either way, there's still a lot that the ex-assassin hasn't told Five about their future. Even Lila could see that there was a shit ton of weight on his shoulders, and adding all of that would have just broken him.

Everything about that single weight was too heavy for the majority of the Umbrellas to carry alone. It's why Lila held her secrets as closely as she ever has. Here is the proof that she's not the only one to know now. Truthfully, Allison is the one person that Lila had been worried about the most, learning about the future. Knowing that she was already spinning out at the loss of her husband and child in that timeline.

So Lila doesn't approach right away, not wanting to be caught in the storm that is Allison's pain and grief upon waking up in yet another place without her two important people. Only approaching when the hurricane has become a smaller rainstorm. She situates herself a couple of steps away, putting herself out of physical attack range. ]

Looks like you're all caught up now. Or maybe I'm the one lagging behind.

[ With all of her closely guarded secrets, no one knows what exact point in time Lila came from. Even her outfit upon seeing Allison was one that had appeared upon entering the dollhouse, so no hints there. ]

[rumorate]

[She remembers what Lila told her about the future, how vague and almost hopeful it had been. If Lila had come sooner, she might have gotten an earful for giving her false hope, for letting her think that she could go home and things would be fine, but by the time the other woman gets there, she knows that she didn't ask the right questions.

And honestly, if she had just lived through her, and all her choices over the past week, she might have kept that to herself too.

One hand comes up to swipe at her cheeks, trying to figure out how to even explain it all.]

Dad is dead. Again. I hit the button but I woke up here.

[littlemimic]

[ Lila knows that the fucked up timeline is just that - it had been brutal to Allison, in particular. What comes next, what happens after the button is hit, she figured that it would be to Allison's benefit. But hey, if anything, Lila had been on the same voting side of helping Reginald even if it had been done because Diego was coddling her.

The reason she hadn't said anything here, that was because that would have just been extra time that Allison had to suffer with the knowledge of no husband and no daughter. It was reason for the spins and a lot of the pain of pretty much every second of that altered timeline.

She had barely told Five anything either, so both Hargreeves were spared at least a little while long. There is no trouble keeping up with this conversation. ]

Sounds pretty close to when I'm from. Look, it's absolutely shit that you ended up here instead of where you wanted to be, but chances are pretty damn good that she exists now, in whatever universe dear papa Hargreeves made. You just have to survive this shitehole to get back to her. Let that be your focus point.

[rumorate]

[Focus points.

She remembers their conversation, when Lila tried to help her before, and part of her knows that she should have listened. But since Lila seems to have gotten past the other side and she has to ask.]

Was everyone okay?

[She doesn't know how to ask about any of it, but she does care about her family.]

[littlemimic]

[ There is only so much she can do to help someone who has the spins, it's up to Allison to figure out what her focus point should be and keep her gaze on it. This whole time, that point has been her daughter - harder to see when she doesn't exist in that fucked up timeline.

Especially through all the shit that was happening and all of the people willing to use it to their advantage. ]

Don't know, haven't come out the other side yet. I'm just good at making it look like I've got my shit together.

[ So maybe it seemed like she wasn't worried about what will happen in the new universe, or that she'd been through it and saw what was waiting for them. ]

Your dad's an asshole, but he's a smart asshole. If he knows what's good for him, he'll have made sure that what you wanted was waiting for you, otherwise you'll be after him.

[ Not just her daughter, but the rest of the Hargreeves too. There might be some rocky times, yet they seemed to overcome them in order to face down a threat to them all. ]

[homeostatic]

( Disorientation is the name of the game, the clean, bright halls of Starfleet Medical traded out for... wherever here is, unknown sky, surroundings, everything. He'd think he was accidentally beamed across Yorktown, but there are no Escher-like habitation rings banding the skies, no crafts in the air except for ancient zeppelins, and the surrounding city is... is... familiar, as if from a long forgotten dream.

McCoy turns an unsteady circle, in disbelief. )

My God...

( shock and rumination's gotta wait though, cut through by a piercing scream of abject misery that tears his gaze from the skyline. )

Hey- ( God, okay, he's a bit shaky legged, but he can stagger his way toward the sobbing woman, pushing past the NPC to reach her, with only the thought to help on his mind. )

[rumorate]

I was so close.

[Something in her sags and her legs go with it, the adrenaline of the last few hours giving out on her now that it was no longer needed. She lets herself sit on the ground, and wallow in her misery because she has nothing else, ignoring the red seeping through from the wound on her arm, tied off haphazardly with a t-shirt. Her knuckles are torn and bruised, and there are other assorted wounds from her battle with the guardians, but she doesn't seem aware of them, or of McCoy, really just staring past him into the middle distance.]

I was so close and now I'm fucking back here.

[homeostatic]

( He goes with her to his knees, hands out in case she should pitch onto her head, taking in her various injuries with a quick survey, injecting calm professionalism into his voice as best he can. )

Yeah? And where is "here"? ( it's meant to be a question for cognition, but there's a definite need to know for himself. Bones casts a look around them again, and breathes a sigh of relief when his eye catches the battered medkit roughly where he woke up. A sharp whistle at the NPC draws their attention – "bring that here!" – and he turns back to... Allison, his memory supplies, impossibly. )

I'm a doctor, alright? You're safe for right now. Can you tell me your name and the date?

[rumorate]

Serithca? I think?

[She can't remember specifically which side of the divide the Beacon was on, or of it was outside of Serithca proper, but that's the general vicinity last she checked. It certainly looks familiar enough.]

My name is Allison and ...

[Well, the date throws her. Fortunately she didn't go through a huge amount of time back home. The Hargreeves tend to go from zero to the end of the world in about a week. But a week is still a week, and she doesn't know how long it's been since the beacon was activated.]

I can't remember. It's been like a week for me back home, but I don't know how long it's been here.

[homeostatic]

( Her confirmation feels like a sucker punch, the last of reality settling in harshly, uncompromising. No dream, then, and Yorktown is long gone.

The helpful citizen draws near enough for McCoy to give them a long squint and snatch the kit out of their hands, shooing them away for safer terrain. 'Anywhere but here', surely, while he rummages for what he needs. )

That's all right, ( he tries for assurance, but can't quite keep the ragged edge out of his voice, ) I think that makes two of us.

Ms. Allison, I need you to focus on me now, all right? ( for the both of them, seemingly, while he winds down a brief scan - and keep himself from swearing a blue streak at her other injuries - nodding at the makeshift bandage. )

I'm gonna get your arm patched up since you're still bleeding, and then we'll get ourselves off this... wherever we are. That sound good?

[westviews]

[The commotion had drawn Wanda's attention. Self-preservation isn't entirely high on her list, and the curiosity she feels is a nice change of pace. So, she makes her way to this burst of noise and power (of some sort), and frowns when she finds what she assumes is the cause. A weeping woman.

Wanda can't say she hasn't been there.]

What happened to you?

[That's one place to start. Asking if she's okay would be absurd.]

[rumorate]

[It's a startling question, especially from someone she doesn't know. She doesn't know, yet, how alike her and Wanda's stories actually are.

She's not quite as alone as Wanda is. Most of her siblings are still alive. But in Allison's mind, the world begins and ends with her daughter, and she doesn't know how to get past that.]

I was inches away from getting my daughter back, and before I could do it, I woke up here.

[There's less confusion with that, as this is a situation she's found herself in before.]

And of course the fucking beacon that sent me home in the first place has decided to no longer work.

[westviews]

[The blunt question was asked without too much investment, but the moment she mentions a daughter, Wanda feels the tug at her heart.

No wonder she's so distraught. She's a mother.]

I'm sorry.

[The words are softer, and Wanda glances around them before her shoulders relax a touch.]

You know the group, then?

[Because Wanda sure as hell doesn't, not in any regard as friends yet, but hopefully she knows someone better equipped to handle all this... grief.]

[rumorate]

Yeah. I've been here ... about a year, I think. Maybe a little longer. It's hard to tell sometimes.

[She gestures to the beacon behind them.]

That piece of shit was supposed to send us home. And it worked long enough for my life to get completely fucked again and then drop me right back here.

[So yeah. She's having a time.]

[westviews]

Seems like a trend.

[Hey, her life was completely fucked before she came here, too.]

It might be better for it to be out of your sight.

[somebadnews]

[ Five had been looking for her. Like always, he's just a little too late. He told himself there was no way she'd use the beacon, or disappear on him like the rest, but he knows how tempting it is to jump at the chance to get out of this hellhole. To say nothing of the way he's felt his siblings losing what little faith they had in him, more or less since he inserted himself back into their lives. Why not roll the dice with some faulty mystical relic instead? Allison would just be the latest to give up and go her own way.

Her shouting grabs his attention, but by the time he circles back she isn't alone. The haircut throws him, and another time he'd let himself believe that was all she'd gone off to do. Leave it to Allison to think about appearances in a time like this. If it wasn't for the injuries he can spot even at a distance and the devastation that rolls off of her.

Comforting his siblings has never been a strong suit of his. Something terrible might have happened to her here, but he has reason to think it's worse than that. He watches and waits until she's alone again to get her attention, and even then, he's slow to approach. ]

Allison. [ A terrible sense of dread sticks in his throat and he swallows it down. ] Where were you?

[rumorate]

Where do you think?

[Sorry, Five, she doesn't have the patience for questions you already know the answer to. Because she thinks it should be obvious enough. Nothing in Serithca could have made her this angry, except maybe finding confirmation of all of Five's paranoia and finding Diego's body dead in a ditch somewhere. But given she is sans a corpse and trying to destroy the beacon with her mind, because it's clearly as useful as a pile of rubble, that is not the case.

But before he can yell at her for jumping the gun and using the beacon as a shortcut:]

I really don't want to hear it.

[somebadnews]

[ He flexes his jaw, but manages to disguise how deeply that stings. She went back. If he hadn't been so gun shy about getting answers from Lila, he might already know what she's angry about. Maybe then he would have been able to warn Allison of what they'd be facing back home to dissuade her from making any rash decisions.

There was just too much going on and he couldn't afford to be distracted. It was stupid. He should have asked the first time he saw Lila. Now he's the one in the dark, trying to catch up. ]

Okay. [ He gestures to her arm. ] You want to tell me what did this?

[rumorate]

[She takes a deep breath, because that's a more complicated story than she can answer in a sentence but she's going to try:]

Dad has a reset button for the world in a space ship attached to Hotel Oblivion.

[Yeah. That makes sense.]

This was from one of the guardians. It's dead now.

[somebadnews]

[ From the look on his face, not one word of that made any sense to him. Although it really shouldn't surprise him that Reginald is still alive, or that he has a spaceship. He did send Luther to the moon. The rest of it though...

He kicks the words around in his brain, trying to find the logic behind them, until he abruptly snaps back at her. ]

What do you mean reset button?

[cosplayqueen]

[Allison isn't the only one crying about the state of the beacon. Kamala is devastated this didn't work out for her. She'd been so sure she'd be going home after doing the right thing with the others. It's more complicated than that; it always is. Doing good doesn't mean you automatically get what you want most.

She isn't the exception to that. It's the scream that brings Kamala running. Is any kid prepared to see the adult they idolize fall apart so completely? She's tempted to walk away at first or call Five.

Unsurprisingly, she stays. She will always choose to do good when it counts. Good is staying. She approaches cautiously.] Allison.... [She wants to say it's okay, but it's not. Her face is swollen and puffy. Allison is crying. They're very not okay.]

I miss them too. [She settles on. Kamala keeps approaching until she stops short of her. She won't hug her yet, but the temptation is so real.]

[rumorate]

[Allison looks up, and when she sees it's Kamala she swipes at her cheeks. She had hoped to pull herself together before she ran into Kamala, or at least hoped that she had made it through the beacon too and didn't have the misfortune of coming back.

She tries to smile before nodding.]

Yeah. Did you make it through?

[cosplayqueen]

N-no. [It comes out soft and watery. She decides to just sink to the ground. Kamala is really tired from the tears. She brings her knees to her chest and vents.] I was so sure this was going to work out. We saved the day, right? This is the part where we all go home. We miss each other, but our adventure was supposed to be over. So why are we still here? What did we do wrong?

[rumorate]

Oh, kiddo. You didn't do anything wrong.

[As much as Allison doesn't want to swallow her pain for her family anymore, Kamala's a kid, while her siblings are grown adults. She can do it for her. She reaches up and holds out her arms, gesturing for her to come closer.]

We've tried other beacons and they haven't worked either. It was a hope and a prayer that this would would actually do it's job.